Foursquare, the company behind the popular Swarm app, has developed a new app called “Marsbot” that brings a new experience to their walks through the city. With Marsbot, you can put your AirPods or any other earphones on and then listen to comments and suggestions about the place you’re walking by.
Developers describe the app as the combination of Foursquare with virtual assistants, as it helps you discover the best places around you and even what to do there. They wanted to create an app that “understands your context and surroundings,” and that’s how Marsbot was developed.
Once you put on your earphones, Marsbot will play comments with interesting details about places, objects, and more around you. This way, you can better enjoy your walks, especially if you’re visiting a place for the first time.
More than offering curated suggestions, Marsbot makes everything even more personal by also letting users share their own audio messages about a location. That means you can share friendly advice with other users about what to eat in that restaurant and things like that.
We built Marsbot for AirPods to feel like you are walking down the street with a friend who knows everything about the city and is constantly pointing out the most interesting things to you. Many of the notifications are designed to help you notice places and things you may have never noticed, even though you’ve walked by them 100 times before.
The developers have also worked on some fun audios, so when you enter places like a McDonald’s, you will hear them whistling the McDonald’s jingle. The app even lets you know when you pass by another Marsbot user, as it will play a “Max is nearby” audio message.
Marsbot is now available for free on the App Store, but it only works in the United States for now. Although the app can be used in any US cities, developers note that it will likely have more available suggestions in cities like New York and San Francisco.
