Foursquare is finally releasing an official iPad app

Believe it or not, Foursquare has never actually offered an official iPad app. Back when the company’s bread and butter was mobile check-ins that might have made sense, but after spinning that feature off it looks like an official Foursquare iPad app is finally in the works. Foursquare chief revenue officer Steven Rosenblatt broke the news during a Mashable-hosted media conference on Friday, adding that it’s expecting to launch in the next few weeks. The new iPad app will give Foursquare fans a way to check out popular restaurants and other places of interest from the comfort of their homes on the device’s bigger screen.

This sounds like a headline from 2010, but Foursquare announced Friday that it would soon be releasing an iPad app. Four years ago, there was speculation that the company would colonize the iPad after then-competitor Gowalla released its app on the platform. Gowalla has since been absorbed into Facebook. Meanwhile, the location-based app category that Foursquare largely pioneered has cooled off tremendously. Foursquare reacted to the market change this year by introducing Swarm, which continues to offer check-ins, while the flagship app has been repurposed to offer suggestions for restaurants and stores a user might like, à la Yelp. The split explains why Foursquare has decided it’s finally time to release an iPad version. Speaking at Mashable’s Media Summit on Friday, Steven Rosenblatt, the chief revenue officer for Foursquare, said the app would be released within a few weeks. The rationale, he said, was to give people “sitting on their couches” a way to plan restaurants to visit and future travel.