One-step checkin?

[Lepton]

My pending iPhone app "Myallo HotList" (http://myallo.com/hotlist)
would like to check in periodically with map coordinates. My current
code does this well, using the two step process, first giving the
coordinates to establish a place, then posting a checkin using the
returned place ID.

But I came across a year-old post saying a checkin can be done in one
step:

"Send a POST request to
http://brightkite.com/places/search.xml?q=someaddress&checkin=true
This will check you in at the given place. "

This would be great since you could checkin with one interaction
instead of two. So I tried this, using coordinates for the query. I'm
also using a simple authorization, like "http://
username:pass...@brightkite.com/places..." which works in the two
step process.

It looks like it works, I get back the info on the place, but when I
look, I don't see that a check in was actually posted. Does this
format still work?