Buyer beware, GQ BarSpy is for Australian iPhone app fans only. It won’t break your iPhone if you accidentally download it, but you won’t get much out of it.
GQ BarSpy ($1.99) is essentially Foursquare for Australia, with GQ recommendations thrown in for good measure. As an American iPhone user, I’m still able to “check in” to places, but no matter what I type into the search box, GQ BarSpy will tell me I have checked in to that location. There is no address or other details about the place I’ve checked in, because I may as well have made it up. This app is not for me.
The actual search feature for Australian users features far more GQ-oriented content, including GQ-recommended restaurants and bars; the only GQ references Americans will notice is the link to the Australian GQ website tucked into the app’s options menu.
And although it is basically Foursquare-lite for Australians, it does do one thing I wish I saw more of on Foursquare – integration with Google Maps. Ideally in GQ Barspy, you could type in a location and you’ll see its placement on a map before you check in, or you’ll see numerous locations on a map where you are, enabling you to check in at any number of them.
While Foursquare does list places near you to check in at, a map would be a cool feature to make checking in more visually interesting. GQ gets bonus points for that.
That said, if you’re an Australian dying to jump into the social networking via the Foursquare craze, GQ BarSpy seems like a solid option. All other stay away, unless you want to check in at your friend Bob’s over and over again.
