Brand Building Applications for Apple's iBeacon

Scared of being tracked and gaining a better buying experience from the best brands out there? Do you absolutely despise change and human advancement? Go shut the feature off in the settings on the phone. Apple always provides a way to opt out with technology like the the iBeacon.
There is too much friction between a user and a QR code. Scanning a QR code has too many variables to be successful:

  • The user needs to have a QR reader downloaded onto their phone. If they don’t have one, they have to spend time getting one to continue.
  • Once they have a scanner, they need a clear shot of the QR code. So if it was pitch black outside, too far away from the code, someone was standing in the way, or any other factor that would impede the process of taking the shot then this wouldn’t work. Unlike beacons, you just wake your phone from sleep and tap a button.

100% friction-less.
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Paying for things “the old way” isn’t hard, but paying for things the new way is easier and more convenient.
This tech if coming whether you like it or not, and it will destroy everything that came before it that tried to solve these problems. Specifically, RFID. If you have been following iBeacon’s then you would know that their sole purpose on this planet isn’t for selling consumer goods. Other uses for iBeacon’s are as follows:

  • Providing visitors to a museum with information about the art they are standing in front of. It’s like the future of “audio tours”.
  • Giving patrons important information (like maps and speaker/presentation times) about the trade-shows/events they are attending.
  • Airports (take me to my gate and give me info about where to find things)
  • Stores: Lowes (where do I find duct tape?), Grocery Stores (where are my favorite snack?)
  • Special functions in certain places. Automatically silence a phone in a movie theater or funeral home or any place that type of thing would be severely rude and disruptive.
  • Pretty much the best mapping system you can create today for inside a building is with beacons and a smartphone. The level of precise proximity and location available with beacons blows GPS out of the water. In places where GPS signal is non-existent and highly inaccurate, beacons succeed with flying colors.


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