So, this morning I got my invitation¹ for check.in an universal check in app. It can check you in at Brightkite, Foursquare and Gowalla, the latter being marked experimental.
I really like the idea and the concept behind it, even though it would be completely unnecessary if only those services would be willing and able to read and write from and to Fire Eagle. I do have a few little problems with it, though:

• To add the three services, I have to hand over my credentials from each of them. No OAuth. And that in 2010, especially since two of the three services – Brightkite and Gowalla – offer OAuth APIs. And as far as I am concerned, the fact that it doesn’t offer a good mobile experience is not an excuse. I could maybe accept it if check.in had a native app and the flow would jump between the app and the browser. But check.in is a mobile web app, it should work out just fine.
• Just a small, personal complaint: There is no way to reset your password. I keep forgetting my password. That could have been avoided by using OpenID, by the way.
• There is no https. That is very unfortunate – a lot of mobile data goes through not very well secured WiFi and it’s not that hard to listen in.²
• It doesn’t quite have the feedback that a native app would have – when I press a “button” it doesn’t really change the color, so I am often confused if I actually tapped it or not. I tapped again and the iPhone browser registered that on the next screen already, resulting in some wrong stuff.

Yepp, I’m complaining, but not much. As I said, the idea is nice and I really like the fact that it is a web app and not a “native” app. It’s worth checking out if you use more than one location-based social network.

1. I refuse to use the word “invite” [↩]
2. On a related note: Neither Foursquare nor Gowalla seem to have it. In the case of Gowalla that seems to be the way how the folks from check.in got the “undocumented API calls” – by listening in on what the official Gowalla app is sending over WiFi. But I’m just guessing. [↩]