Apple’s iOS 7.1 update this week has quietly introduced changes that bring major improvements to the way iBeacons— Apple’s Bluetooth LE beacon standard— can interact with iOS devices. The changes were first spotted in a report from Beekn.net, and we spoke with ThirdShelf, which recently demonstrated its white-label solution for building mobile apps that interact with iBeacons in retail environments, to get its take. First a little background. The report claimed iOS devices are now capable of detecting beacons even when an app is not open and not running in the background:
The change is an important one for the many companies and developers rolling out iBeacon solutions in what have so far been mostly retail and event environments. As noted in the report, iBeacons were previously limited to sending notifications to devices that have a specific app open or at the very least running in the background. CEO of ThirdShelf Antoine Azar told us a little bit about how this will change will allow developers to create a much more seamless experience:
While we don’t yet have any additional details on the exact changes made for iBeacon functionality in iOS 7.1, the report from Beekn continued by adding that it also discovered significant improvements to responsiveness:
In regards to responsiveness, Azar said that with iOS 7 ThirdShelf would often “observe sometimes a few minutes delay before iBeacon would kick in and detect the event, breaking the experience somewhat.” The changes in iOS 7.1, he noted, will greatly improve the experience and leave it up to users to delete or disable apps that don’t send content they find valuable:
Below is a recent demonstration of ThirdShelf’s iBeacon retail experience that we shot. You’ll notice launching the app is necessary before entering the concept store:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ_YJG_2rzs]
