Foursquare Checks Out Of The iTunes App Store

Foursquare’s iPhone app has been withdrawn from iTunes app store.

Foursquare, the mobile service which brings together social city-guides and location-based gaming is normally available for iPhone, Blackberry, PalmPre and Android devices.  However, its iPhone app, originally launched in 2009, has disappeared from iTunes store, leaving many users unable to access the service.

Foursquare, along with many other mobile app startups, is rushing to release a new version of its application ahead of next week’s SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas, as reported by TechCrunch.  It even put a new version (1.6) live a couple of days ago, featuring a number of significant improvements to the overall ‘look and feel’ in a move to compete with the less popular but slicker-looking Gowalla app.

However, all traces of the Foursquare app have now disappeared from the iTunes app store – not even the previous releases are available to fill the gap.  The latest Android app, also released on 5th March, remains available as does the Blackberry beta, but the app for the iPhone, by far the most popular Foursquare platform, is no longer on the market.

This is likely to be a temporary blip, whilst glitches in what seems to be a fairly extensive revamp are ironed out.  However, those who managed to update their software to version 1.6 whilst it was briefly available can no longer use the app, instead when they try to sign in they are redirected to the iTunes app store to get ‘the latest version of the app, which is not available.

The app’s disappearance couldn’t come at a worse time for Foursquare, which has just announced its new Restaurant Dashboard trial.

What’s more, over on Google Buzz, influential tech blogger Robert Scoble is busy promoting Foursquare to over 8,000 of his Buzz followers in what he describes as a Location-Based Services Shoot-Out, many of who are now trying to locate the app on iTunes and coming away disappointed.

Several of Scoble’s European followers are assuming that the Foursquare app is simply not available outside the USA.  However, the app appears to be unavailable across all iTunes stores.

A statement on Foursquare’s Twitter-feed puts the disappearance down to “a slight hiccup” with the latest iPhone app submission, adding “We’ll be back in a day or 2! Sorry!”