Foursquare finally optimizes its Android app for tablets and big smartphones

It’s taken a while, but Foursquare finally has an app built with Android tablets in mind.

The app update, released this week, comes with a browsing experience ideal for tablets and phones with large screens. In keeping with Foursquare’s ongoing efforts to give all of its products the same look, the updated Explore interface is almost identical to Explore on the web. And that’s a good thing.

While the idea of Foursquare on tablets doesn’t quite mesh with the app’s mobile focus, Foursquare has been repositioning itself — moving away from mobile check-ins and towards exploration and location discovery. In that respect, optimizing the app for tablets makes perfect sense: People tend to have more time to explore when they’re in front of their tablets and desktops, not smartphones.

Absent from Foursquare’s latest announcement, however, is any word of a similar app upgrade for the iPad, which still uses a blown-up version of Foursquare for iPhone. It’s likely, though, that the Android app is a precursor to an upcoming iPad update, so iPad owners should expect some sort of big interface update in the next few weeks.