The other morning, I woke up early from an uncomfortable hotel bed and decided to catalog the previous night’s food exploits in one of my favorite apps–Foodspotting.  (If you don’t know, Foodspotting is a cool social-networking type of app for logging and sharing cool foods from cool places with friends, strangers, and really anyone who loves to eat.)

Because my location was a bit remote (Watertown, SD), the restaurant at which I ate was not in the database.  No matter, I thought, I’ll simply add it.

Now if you know me, you’ll know that things like adding address and phone number information is something of a religious practice for me.  I’ve spent dozens of minutes in FourSquare and Foodspotting making sure that my locations are properly tagged, categorized, and addressed.  So when adding Dempsey’s (the joint in Watertown) to Foodspotting, I had to open Safari.  The problem?  The Foodspotting app was still “old school,” meaning it had not yet been optimized for iOS4, so I spent several frustrating minutes switching to Safari, copying this bit of address or menu item, and then reloading Foodspotting to enter and save the information.  Ugh.

Once finished with this ordeal, I launched a new email, intent on expressing my desire to Foodspotting’s developers that they please drop whatever they’ve been doing to at least upgrade the app for multitasking support.

Before I could send the email, however, I noticed that an update was available in my App Store.  Can you believe it?  It was a brand-spanking new version of Foodspotting, all shiny and ready for me to waste away the day to my heart’s content!

The New App

First impression?  The new app is WAY faster.  Perhaps it was a fluke, but the “nearby” foods that load with the app loaded infinitely faster than they did before, and new foods requested on refresh appeared much faster as well.

Another nice feature is the expanded profile section.  Here, you can see all your “stats,” such as your recent activity, which foods you’ve spotted, who you’re following, etc.  Pretty nice.

Also, you can start and complete “guides” in the app.  I’ve not embarked on one of these yet, but I’ll update once I complete my first.  To create a guide, you’ll still have to do that from the website, though.  At first, it appears to be a bit of an oversight–however, guides can be complex, so I can see why it didn’t make this iteration.

Finally, multitasking.  Awesome.  ‘Nuff said.

Wrapping Up

If you’re not a food spotter, this is probably boring, but then you’re probably also a loser.  For those who are in, this evolution to the app is a welcome change, and holds great promise for the continuing evolution of Foodspotting as a service and community.

For more about the new Foodspotting, check out the Foodspotting blog.