That's cool! I can now imagine museums, art galleries, landmarks allowing people to use their own iPhone for "guided tours" instead of giving them those disgusting headsets and audio players. They could rent out an iPod touch to those who aren't fortunate enough to be carrying an iDevice at the time.
Could they also update scores from other games via iBeacon on their app? It would be kind of cool to have all the players stats pop up / be available as they walk up to the plate, or take the mound.
The American Museum of Natural History in NYC has somehting like this, there's an app for it!
This sounds so cool! As long as the user has the ability to turn this feature off/on as they choose, this will be a welcome addition for apps going forward.
It looks like if you turn off location services (ie Maps, Siri, Passbook etc) you can disable iBeacons, tho that's not entirely certain yet. Do you see iBeacons listed in Location Services on your iPhone? There's a doc here and it doesn't really say: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5594?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
If there's a checkbox for iBeacon then that should offer a way to disable it so that your iDevice no longer broadcasts identity information. So do you see one?
Cool. This series of posts kind of lays out issues I see and proposes partial answers to most... ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jamie Dennis
Would be great to see this technology used in theme parks, especially Walt Disney World. So many possibilities for this tech in that application.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JackNC
Please, PLEASE put this in my grocery store so it doesn't take me an hour to find the green beans!
Especially since many of us need to shop in multiple places to get what we need. And many specialty items are harder to find than green beans (they're in Produce everywhere after all).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
Absolutely. NFC can't track you and your movements like this and so wouldn't be as nearly as valuable to businesses and data monetizers. I expect beacons to be rolled out widely and quickly. I suspect Google will embrace this too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by abazigal
If it works only with iphones, I doubt it will have the impact we are hoping. Few companies in their right mind will adopt a standard that automatically shunts out more than 1/2 their consumer base.
Much as I want this to take off so Android users can finally shut up about the iphones not supportining NFC, I see this maybe gaining some traction in the US, but not anywhere else.
The above and below are where things start to get unclear a bit....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goldndoodle
Estimote (http://estimote.com) has some Beacons they're pre-selling. Their website claims that the BLE tech works with Apple, Google and Nokia. It would probably depended on what the apps for each platform are capable of handling as far as graphics and content, but it sounds like it will work to some extent with every platform.
If iBeacons is the emerging solution to providing the above and many other potential services (which it will only be if they work with great majority of devices), the market for these guys (which will eventually cost very little) will be in the billions and billions of devices.
So what will Apple's role be (and what rights do they have at this point)? Making them? (They've never done a huge volume, lower-priced, likely lower margin operation - but even at a buck net per device, that's a lot of money.) Licensing bits of the patents and tech? Providing an open standard they influence to their benefit by staying on the leading edge of deployment and best uses? Or keeping them "within the ecosystem" (which the one comment implies is already not going to be way of it)??
It works via Bluetooth. So obviously it won’t work with only iPhones; iPod touch and iPad will be able to do this, too.
Hmm, I wonder if it's the anticipation of this that's the source of the otherwise curious (to me anyway) notation within the Bluetooth settings that location services are improved with Bluetooth enabled? And the seeming fact that in at least my iOS 7 upgrade (and the patch) Bluetooth being "on" is the default reset?
Does anyone know how this work, is it part of an app, so you have to have that app running to receive the info, or will it just pop up as part of iOS as a notification?
Just stumbled on the specific answer from MLB rep Eric O'Brien, the director of wireless product development.
"Using iBeacon, MLB's app could also keep track of visits, even if the fan didn't check in or open the app. That way, it can extend different types of offers to first timers and "regulars."
Google doesn't like this technology because neither the Beacons (which just transmit passively) nor the operating system (which just sees ID numbers without context) record any tracking data.
Tracking is all down to the apps and their developers - which would be out of Google's hands.
It works via Bluetooth. So obviously it won’t work with only iPhones; iPod touch and iPad will be able to do this, too.
It's not even unique to Apple. It's part of bluetooth standards with development going back to at least 2007. PayPal has it's own bluetooth Beacon feature but they're walking straight to the payment desk. Apple is going there thru the back door.
So iBeacon is the name Apple assigns to their implementation of the standard. PayPal simply calls it Beacon. There's not many companies yet positioned to see serious income from integrating the protocol either. Apple already has most of the pieces in place.
Comments
That's cool! I can now imagine museums, art galleries, landmarks allowing people to use their own iPhone for "guided tours" instead of giving them those disgusting headsets and audio players. They could rent out an iPod touch to those who aren't fortunate enough to be carrying an iDevice at the time.
Could they also update scores from other games via iBeacon on their app? It would be kind of cool to have all the players stats pop up / be available as they walk up to the plate, or take the mound.
The American Museum of Natural History in NYC has somehting like this, there's an app for it!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/explorer-american-museum-natural/id381227123?mt=8
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5594?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
If there's a checkbox for iBeacon then that should offer a way to disable it so that your iDevice no longer broadcasts identity information. So do you see one?
Cool. This series of posts kind of lays out issues I see and proposes partial answers to most... ...
Quote:Would be great to see this technology used in theme parks, especially Walt Disney World. So many possibilities for this tech in that application.
Please, PLEASE put this in my grocery store so it doesn't take me an hour to find the green beans!
Especially since many of us need to shop in multiple places to get what we need. And many specialty items are harder to find than green beans (they're in Produce everywhere after all).
Quote:
Absolutely. NFC can't track you and your movements like this and so wouldn't be as nearly as valuable to businesses and data monetizers. I expect beacons to be rolled out widely and quickly. I suspect Google will embrace this too.
If it works only with iphones, I doubt it will have the impact we are hoping. Few companies in their right mind will adopt a standard that automatically shunts out more than 1/2 their consumer base.
Much as I want this to take off so Android users can finally shut up about the iphones not supportining NFC, I see this maybe gaining some traction in the US, but not anywhere else.
The above and below are where things start to get unclear a bit....
Estimote (http://estimote.com) has some Beacons they're pre-selling. Their website claims that the BLE tech works with Apple, Google and Nokia. It would probably depended on what the apps for each platform are capable of handling as far as graphics and content, but it sounds like it will work to some extent with every platform.
If iBeacons is the emerging solution to providing the above and many other potential services (which it will only be if they work with great majority of devices), the market for these guys (which will eventually cost very little) will be in the billions and billions of devices.
So what will Apple's role be (and what rights do they have at this point)? Making them? (They've never done a huge volume, lower-priced, likely lower margin operation - but even at a buck net per device, that's a lot of money.) Licensing bits of the patents and tech? Providing an open standard they influence to their benefit by staying on the leading edge of deployment and best uses? Or keeping them "within the ecosystem" (which the one comment implies is already not going to be way of it)??
It works via Bluetooth. So obviously it won’t work with only iPhones; iPod touch and iPad will be able to do this, too.
Hmm, I wonder if it's the anticipation of this that's the source of the otherwise curious (to me anyway) notation within the Bluetooth settings that location services are improved with Bluetooth enabled? And the seeming fact that in at least my iOS 7 upgrade (and the patch) Bluetooth being "on" is the default reset?
And the seeming fact that in at least my iOS 7 upgrade (and the patch) Bluetooth being "on" is the default reset?
That ticked me off, but I think it may have been part of it. Not that anything takes advantage of this feature yet…
Just stumbled on the specific answer from MLB rep Eric O'Brien, the director of wireless product development.
"Using iBeacon, MLB's app could also keep track of visits, even if the fan didn't check in or open the app. That way, it can extend different types of offers to first timers and "regulars."
Google doesn't like this technology because neither the Beacons (which just transmit passively) nor the operating system (which just sees ID numbers without context) record any tracking data.
Tracking is all down to the apps and their developers - which would be out of Google's hands.
It's not even unique to Apple. It's part of bluetooth standards with development going back to at least 2007. PayPal has it's own bluetooth Beacon feature but they're walking straight to the payment desk. Apple is going there thru the back door.
So iBeacon is the name Apple assigns to their implementation of the standard. PayPal simply calls it Beacon. There's not many companies yet positioned to see serious income from integrating the protocol either. Apple already has most of the pieces in place.
http://wiki.foaf-project.org/w/BluetoothBeacon