Foursquare has launched version 2.0 of its iPhone app, adding new functionality and the introduction of new “Add to My Foursquare” buttons for the Web.

For v2.0, Foursquare puts heavy emphasis on Tips and To-Dos, which are now front and center in the bottom navigation bar, while also connecting the dots between “web discovery and mobile activity.”  Co-founder Dennis Crowley had said the new functionality in v2.0 would be like “Instapaper for the real world,” to encourage app users to look at Foursquare as a way to easily save the places they want to visit and store activities that might be of future interest.

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The ARIA Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas has always been known to lead Sin City in technological innovation, and is furthering that reputation with the release of three new iPhone apps.

The first one, simply dubbed “ARIA,” is an interactive concierge app for guests of the hotel, giving users on-the-go access to news, menus, directions, tickets, weather, special offers and much more within a single app.  User can take advantage of all the complex has to offer directly from the app, including reserving show tickets, booking reservations at the numerous restaurants or navigating the massive grounds.

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I’ve long wondered when someone would start leveraging existing LBS apps as a platform to add layers of functionality on top of, and it looks like a team at Jumpfox — a mobile app development firm — has done just that.

They’ve created a new startup and mobile app called “TappLocal,” which aims to emulate the rewards and location-based offers being integrated in existing LBS apps like Foursquare and Yelp, but do so independently to create a so-called “location-based ad-network” strictly for highly relevant LBS offers.  The tech is then offered up to partner LBS apps for integration.

Here’s how it works: TappLocal uses their backend to create a geofence around certain partner venues.  When a user crosses that boundary and happens to be using one of the partner apps, a deal indicator will pop-up in real-time.  Clicking this area opens a larger area explaining exactly what the deal is.  Simply click one more time to verify you wish to use the deal, show it to the store that it’s valid at, and the offer is validated and redeemed on-the-spot.

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Mobile Roadie, a provider of a dead simple mobile app building platform for iPhone and Android apps, recently announced a new “Pro” version of the platform that allows for even more customization and functionality.

The platform offers a beautiful interface to design apps, allowing full customization of menu layouts, colors, buttons, and fonts.  The new Pro version also supports multiple categories of content, a global search for users and newly designed landscape views, just to name a few.

The new platform has already been used by some big names to create some pretty impressive apps.  Three examples include the Wynn Las Vegas, indie electro label Ninja Tune and music and lifestyle publication The FADER.  ”We are very picky and controlling when it comes to brand integrity,” says Andy Cohn, EVP and Group Publisher of FADER Media, Inc. “Every single part of our user’s engagement has to experience The FADER brand and culture.”  The FADER is also offering exclusive content available to view when people download their app.

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Mobile apps are a great way to reach and engage consumers from all walks of life, and the UK government seems to agree.  BBC News is reporting that the UK government has spent thousands of pounds on creating numerous iPhone apps.

The apps aren’t all government related either, some aim to make life easier for citizens- such as an app to help users quit smoking or change a tire, and even one that lets users search for jobs in the UK, Scotland and Wales.  While most of the development has been geared towards iPhones, Android versions are in the pipeline as well.

When hit with a Freedom of Information request, the government admitted that they’d spent between $15K and $61K to cover the cost of development for its various apps, not including the cost of some that the government wouldn’t reveal due to “security concerns.”  What’s interesting is that this comes at the same time the UK government issued a freeze on all spending for marketing and advertising- to include the development of all mobile apps as well.

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Some of the biggest news surrounding the launch of iOS 4 is in relation to location-tracking as a background process, opening up a world of opportunity for application developers.  While LBS apps are quickly baking in the new capability, SimpleGeo has been busy laying the groundwork for other startups and app developers to utilize the new functionality as well, without having to reinvent the wheel so-to-speak.

SimpleGeo, which has long been perfecting its mobile location infrastructure solutions, has announced new options for full iOS 4 support for background location tracking and geofencing, effectively taking the guesswork out of the equation for app developers and startups wanting to get in on the action.  Implementation is dead simple too, allowing developers to implement geofencing, for example, by adding 6 simple lines of code to their apps.  Implementation of background tracking will only take about 30 lines of code.

In a conversation between SimpleGeo co-founder Joe Stump and TechCrunch yesterday, Stump explained a few examples of what’s possible using the new simplified infrastructure; “So you basically just say, ‘Track parislemon’ and we handle that in our API along with record history,” explained Stump.  “I can then come back and say, ‘Show me the last 10 places parislemon was.”  Another example could be when you switch neighborhoods with a location service, it could alert you that someone you know is around you (similar to something Loopt 3.0 offers), or SimpleGeo’s data could offer you the ability to do something as easy as automatically know when you enter a new state and give you a message like: “Welcome to the Sunshine State.“

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Updated iPhone apps that take advantage of all that iOS 4 offers are coming in hot and heavy, and one standout difference in most is the ability to leverage multi-tasking to the user’s advantage.

Loopt’s forthcoming updated iOS 4 app does just that, but for check-in functionality.  The location-based service is adding background processing that allows users to check-in automatically, without having to dive directly into the app.  In addition, version 3.0 will allow deeper integration with Facebook to leverage its massive social graph.  This combined with background automatic check-ins will make Loopt an LBS app to be reckoned with, though all the others will surely follow suit just as quickly.

“The ability to run location-based apps in the background makes serendipity happen.  With the new capabilities provided by iOS 4, users will be able to share their location and receive alerts on the phone in their pocket when they’re near a friend.  This sort of accidental discovery just wasn’t possible with a check In-only approach to location sharing,” said Sam Altman, CEO of Loopt, in a prepared statement.  “We will be able to bring the full Loopt experience to our users, allowing them to find friends with a single click or instantly discover interesting events nearby in a way that is fully controlled, adjustable and above all privacy-conscious.”