2015: Year of the Beacon

(finally)

What a great week for developers and iBeacons fans. With all the new tools and features in iOS8 we’re without a doubt on the boat that will rock next year.

Apple opened unexpected opportunities for developers and as I’m watching WWDC videos right now, I have just too many ideas what to do next. It’s awesome. There was no such technological revolution since the debut of App Store in 2008. What also makes me happy is the fact, that we hopped on the iBeacon and Bluettoth LE train soon enough to get in the first class. What a feeling! But there’s still one question left to answer. It resonates within developer circles all around me.

“How many people with iPhones have Bluetooth on?”

The honest answer is, none of them has.

Beacons have no future, if bluetooth is alway off, and yes, majority of iPhone users (and almost all Android users) hit that button as soon as they can.

But let’s put it this way: “How many people use Wi-fi or cellular data, GPS, etc.?”

Probably all of us do.

Why?

Because we find it useful.

Until now, bluetooth was just a hungry eye of our batteries. It will change with iOS8. I’m sure it will. Apple fell in love with bluetooth this year: Continuity, AirDrop, HandOff, HomeKit, HealthKit, all these new features and APIs need it and make BT super useful.

Hungry eye will soon become iPhone’s best friend. Always on, always ready. Let’s do the same thing. We can make it even more useful in so many ways, and iBeacons are huge part of this game. Not only as a stand-alone device, but as a built-in feature as well.

2015 is the year of the Beacons, so please, don’t screw it up with push notifications spam.