Check out CardStar's Foursquare check-ins

Digital loyalty card-minder CardStar adds new integration with Foursquare and along with it, a process for automatically checking into your favorite CardStar locations.

Jessica Dolcourt Senior Director, Commerce & Content Operations

Jessica Dolcourt is a passionate content strategist and veteran leader of CNET coverage. As Senior Director of Commerce & Content Operations, she leads a number of teams, including Commerce, How-To and Performance Optimization. Her CNET career began in 2006, testing desktop and mobile software for Download.com and CNET, including the first iPhone and Android apps and operating systems. She continued to review, report on and write a wide range of commentary and analysis on all things phones, with an emphasis on iPhone and Samsung. Jessica was one of the first people in the world to test, review and report on foldable phones and 5G wireless speeds. Jessica began leading CNET's How-To section for tips and FAQs in 2019, guiding coverage of topics ranging from personal finance to phones and home. She holds an MA with Distinction from the University of Warwick (UK).

Expertise Content strategy, team leadership, audience engagement, iPhone, Samsung, Android, iOS, tips and FAQs.

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Jessica Dolcourt

July 27, 2010 5:00 a.m. PT

2 min read

If you're toting around an iPhone in one pocket and a bulging wallet stuffed with loyalty cards in the other, let us respectfully say this: You're doing it wrong. With only a bit of legwork, you can lighten your load by scanning or manually adding your cards for your supermarkets, book stores, pet shops, sports stores, and the library, and stick them on your phone with an app like CardStar.

Version 3.0 of the free card-minder is on its way to to the iPhone App Store, and it's packing some pretty major feature changes, including integrating social-networking service Foursquare.

Open up CardStar 3.0 for iPhone and click the merchant record, then the new Foursquare button, CardStar will return a list of results for nearby stores. Star one as a favorite, and the app can recognize it, automatically checking you in at that specific location on subsequent visits. The company intends to reach out to other location-based services as well, possibly Loopt, Gowalla, and others with open APIs.

CardStar 3.0 for iPhone integrates Fourquare's social check-in service. CardStar

CardStar has been telling CNET for months of its plans to go big by folding social networking hook and coupon offers into what is otherwise a dry, static storage app, and the Foursquare integration is a fair start.

In addition, version 3.0 also sees CardStar branching out with CardStar Connect, a cloud-based backup and restore feature that will soon make it easy to transfer the bar codes and pin numbers you've already entered once to CardStar other mobile devices.

On the user interface front, CardStar gets a second panel on its home screen to help manage apps. We'd prefer a different placement but suspect CardStar did this to draw attention to its newly wrought ability to create accounts. There's also a new Extras tab, which is the access point for Foursquare check-ins, and a Favorite list that facilitates location-driven check-ins.

Look for CardStar 3.0 in the App Store this week.

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