Some of the places on the map are woefully out of date - in some cases, places which have closed, changed name, or opened since more than 10 years are not reflected on the map or in the options for a visit. It would be nice to be able to use more up to date data, or at the very least edit them
Hi @Aragost!
Arc uses Foursquare for its Places database. Though the place names you see directly on the map come from Mapbox / OpenStreetMap.
OpenStreetMap tends to usually be more up to date than Apple Maps or sometimes even Google Maps, but it does depend on how many volunteers are working on it in your neighbourhood. Anyone can get involved in the OpenStreetMap project, though I’d wager there’s a considerable learning curve.
For Foursquare Places database, check in the Foursquare app or Swarm app to see if the relevant places are in there. If they’re in there, they should also be in Arc. In the Foursquare or Swarm app you can also submit edits to existing places (eg if a place is now permanently closed, or changed name, etc), as well as add new places.
If you add a new public place in the Foursquare or Swarm app, it should be available in Arc within either minutes or hours or days, depending on various Foursquare user moderation variables. I think if you’re a regular user of Foursquare or Swarm your new places will probably appear more quickly.
For new private places (eg “My Home”, “Gary’s Backyard”), you can add them directly in Arc, by tapping “Add a new private place”. These places will only exist in your own private database. I often also use private places for minor places that too lazy to add to Foursquare.
Aside: Arc has always used Foursquare’s Places database because historically it’s simply been the best. It has (or had) the most places, with the most detail and accuracy. However a major reason why the latest version of Arc now requires a subscription is because the Foursquare API has gone from being free to being very expensive.
Which means I am open to the idea of changing to a different Places database provider. However as far as I’ve seen so far, the only other credible option is Google Places, which appears to be equally or more expensive, and at least historically was less accurate and detailed than Foursquare’s database.
For Arc to change to a new Places provider, it would have to be a significant step up, to justify a change that disruptive to users’ existing and ongoing data. I’m doubtful Google Places would be enough of a step up, if at all. But it is on my todos to investigate it in more detail at some stage.
hey, thanks for the followup.
Foursquare for its Places database. Though the place names you see directly on the map come from Mapbox / OpenStreetMap.
I can see why this happens, but I can also imagine this being confusing for users (why can’t I select the name I see on the map?)
OpenStreetMap tends to usually be more up to date than Apple Maps or sometimes even Google Maps, but it does depend on how many volunteers are working on it in your neighbourhood. Anyone can get involved in the OpenStreetMap project, though I’d wager there’s a considerable learning curve.
I’m aware of this, and I’ve been an OSM editor since 15 years 
For Foursquare Places database, check in the Foursquare app or Swarm app to see if the relevant places are in there. If they’re in there, they should also be in Arc. In the Foursquare or Swarm app you can also submit edits to existing places (eg if a place is now permanently closed, or changed name, etc), as well as add new places.
For Foursquare Places database, check in the Foursquare app or Swarm app to see if the relevant places are in there. If they’re in there, they should also be in Arc. In the Foursquare or Swarm app you can also submit edits to existing places (eg if a place is now permanently closed, or changed name, etc), as well as add new places.
this is where I find something weird. Let me make a concrete example.
There is a supermarket near where I live, and sometimes I go there. This used to be another brand, then changed in early 2019 and then changed again during 2020 to its current brand.
If I visit the place and open Arc afterwards, the map shows the current (correct) name - understandable, since I edited it myself on OSM a while ago. In the places list the supermarket has the first name, more than three years old. If I try and see on Foursquare I’ll see no supermarket, my guess is that Foursquare only shows restaurant, nightlife, public transport, attractions, but not “everyday” places. If I go to Swarm I’m able to check in to the supermarket… with the new name. After checking in, I can use the link from the Swarm app to Foursquare and see the same place with the correct, up to date name.
So, to recap, the place name is up to date everywhere (OSM, Foursquare, Swarm) but not in Arc. This is just an example, but there are many like this.
I’ll try and see what happens with adding new places, but for existing places something is out of place.
Aside: Arc has always used Foursquare’s Places database because historically it’s simply been the best. It has (or had) the most places, with the most detail and accuracy. However a major reason why the latest version of Arc now requires a subscription is because the Foursquare API has gone from being free to being very expensive
Which means I am open to the idea of changing to a different Places database provider. However as far as I’ve seen so far, the only other credible option is Google Places, which appears to be equally or more expensive, and at least historically was less accurate and detailed than Foursquare’s database.
Just to give you a data point, at least where I live, the Google Places database has been vastly more accurate and detailed for almost ten years, since when people stopped using Foursquare. Heck, even the places for Apple maps are more up to date.
Again thanks for the support and have a nice day
Back when I first integrated Foursquare, there was an API use condition that prohibited using it alongside another Places provider. So you had to choose Foursquare OR Google. I’m not sure if that condition still exists, though I think mingling multiple sources in the place search results might be troublesome from a UX perspective.
Very cool 
This could be due to Foursquare API v2 versus v3. Foursquare are trying to push everyone to their new API version, which makes use of their newer database (a combined database of their own and another company’s, that I forget the name of, who they merged with some time back).
Arc still uses the v2 API and database, because there are still significant issues with the v3 database. For example in my recent testing on the v3 database a few months back I found that all Thai train stations outside of Bangkok metro stations were excluded from API results and search results. So I had to roll back Arc to the v2 database for the current release, until Foursquare work out the kinks.
I’m hopeful to get Arc onto the v3 API before the end of the year, but we’ll have to see how they get on at their end.
Hard disagree. Arc is only about six years old, and I did extensive comparison testing of the major place database providers back in the first couple of years, and Foursquare was unequalled. Google might possibly win these days on business up-to-date-ness (though I haven’t seen that proven yet), but Foursquare has always won for breadth. Back in Arc’s early years Google wasn’t even a close second, and the rest were a joke.
I’d like to do some comparison testing again versus Google Places, because with the new high pricing it doesn’t make sense to stick with Foursquare without doing some more due diligence. But for Google Places to win it really needs not only be up to date but also broad - little things like intersections, bike stands, food trucks, market stalls, mall parking (as a separate place from the mall itself), e-scooter / bike share stands, etc, etc.
Arc supports visits as brief as two minutes, which means when someone goes to the mall their timeline isn’t just going to be “The Mall” (unless the user really wants to classify all stops as the one place), it’s going to be Mall Carpark Section B, Mall Toilets, Smoothie Stall, Supermarket, Starbucks, etc. Historically only Foursquare could provide that breadth and depth.
As a personal example, my condo has a gym, a pool, and a communal office/meeting space. Foursquare has separate Places for each of those (though I added the pool one myself), but Google Places only has one Place entry, for the condo itself.
If anyone is going to beat Foursquare these days, I’d bet on it being Google. But it has to meet a higher bar than just having commercial business data more up to date.
Any news on this Foursquare issue?
I have the exact same issue here, where I can see the latest updates in Swarm and Foursquare but can’t find them in Arc, which is but if a pain
I’ll do some tests on their new database / v3 API again this week, to see whether they’ve fixed the problems. It would be nice to get this out of the way.
@matt any news on the test of the new API?
@BDein I haven’t tested it yet, but it’s on the “Release Blockers” list for the next release, which means I have to do it before shipping the next update. Which means I should get to it very soon!
Hi @matt,
How close are we to the release of the new version?
I just got back from a 12 day holiday, so I’m back to working on the release now. I’m not sure exactly how long it’s going to take, but let’s say possibly some time next week.
Good with some vacation​:blush:
Timing sounds just great
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I forgot to mention it in the release notes, but Arc 3.12.0 now uses the new Foursquare database!
Which means hopefully we’ll see more up to date data. Though I’m still not 100% happy with the quality of the data from Foursquare’s new database. Time will tell.
10-4
I look forward to that!
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Hi.
I believe the new database update somewhat screwed up the tagging.
i checked in at Gate xxx at on an airport on swarm. i later on the evening try to mark it in arc and search query of a “gate” gives me absolutely nothing. not a single gate i could check in for. i could do this before on a different flight at a same airport. searching just “gate” on swarm gives me the appropriate gate.
also, all the icons next to the items were just the map pins, very confusing. might be related so that’s why i’m highlighting it here. good to note though that not every place is like this. the area where i live still has icons next to stores and such. maybe a caching keeps them there?
added a screenshot of the issue
Yeah, it seems that in Foursquare’s own apps they are showing data from both databases, but for third party apps (eg Arc) it’s only one of the other. Arc has to use either the old v2 database or the new v3 database. And the v3 database does appear to be worse in some regards. Not ideal.
Unfortunately that’s something I can’t fix, other than reverting to using the v2 database, which isn’t really workable given Foursquare have stated that they intend to end-of-life the v2 database at some stage, and it also appears to not be receiving updates, so is steadily drifting out of date.
So the only course forward really is to contact Foursquare and let them know about the missing places, and hope that they have a solution at their end.
Yes, this is another reason why I held off on converting to the v3 database for so long. The new database uses completely different “category ids” for places, so all of Arc’s mappings of category ids to place type icons have been broken.
At some stage there was a document on their Github that possibly gave a mapping from old category ids to new category ids, which I could have used for the conversion, but that document is now gone. So I’m going to have to play whack-a-mole, identifying them one by one and hooking them up to the appropriate icons again.
This databases transition really has left Arc a bit cornered. Either stick with the old database, which appears no longer receive updates, leaving Arc’s data increasingly out of date, or change to the new database and suffer a separate set of problems.
Anyway, I’ll do my best to hook up the category ids to icons over the next few Arc updates. And hopefully over time Foursquare will resolve the issues with missing/incorrect places in their new database.
Thanks for the info. Yeah it’s a bit of a shame this update did what it did.
Just spitballing here, Would it be an option to use OSM POIs and building names as an alternative option. Like, if you don’t find what you are looking for from Foursquare’s database, show a button of “search more on OSM” which would then show the results. And if even then the POI is missing, the custom place name could include optional OSM tagging/upload support. Could actually work pretty well imo
is it possibile that this and this might be the documents you are looking for? Back in may I received an email from Foursquare with subject “[Product Update] Enhancements to Foursquare’s Category Taxonomy for API Developers” containing this and other information on categories and the (then) upcoming changes
Unfortunately not 
What’s needed is a file that maps v2 category ids to v3 category ids. Then I could just run a script to auto update Arc’s mappings of category ids to icons. But without that mapping of v2 to v3, it has to be done by hand.
I got through hooking up about 50 or so categories yesterday, and will probably submit an Arc update to the App Store today.
There’s still probably hundreds more commonly used category ids to get through though, so it’ll have to happen in stages over the next few releases, so that I don’t die from the tedium of trying to do them all in one go 
Actually, if I had a file with the complete list of v3 category ids and names, I could probably feed that to ChatGPT’s code interpreter, along with telling it descriptions of what icons Arc has available, then I could get the robot to do most of the legwork. That might actually be worth a try… If there is a file out there with the complete list of categories, that is.