
Apple Releases iBeacon Specification - uptown
http://beekn.net/2014/02/apple-releases-ibeacon-specification/
======
guelo
We already know what Apple's iBeacon BLE advertising packet looks like without
having to sign away your first-born to read the spec. Here it is:

    
    
      ff 4c 00 02 15  # Apple's fixed iBeacon advertising prefix
      <Your 16 byte iBeacon proximity uuid>
      00 00 # major 
      00 00 # minor 
      c5 # The 2's complement of the calibrated Tx Power
    

Anybody can build such a BLE device and market it as "Compatible with iPhone".
The question is if Apple will try to to go full-asshole and claim copyright of
that packet structure or something ridiculous like that.

~~~
loceng
Unfortunately it's likely they will go "full asshole" as Apple is a controlled
ecosystem.

~~~
gress
If you don't tell us why you think it would be in their interest to do so,
your comment is meaningless.

~~~
loceng
"... as Apple is a controlled ecosystem."

~~~
gress
What does that mean? Where is this idea defined? How do we know this? What are
the alternatives?

~~~
loceng
Good questions. I'm sorry though I don't have time to reply in depth. The
opposite of controlled is managed IMHO.

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cromwellian
I wish the media would stop calling BLE "iBeacon". It's like the media started
calling WiFi "Airport". First of all, it gives the mistaken impression that
Apple invented or controls BLE which is am industry spec. Secondly, one would
have to fear that sooner or later, some proprietary extension makes iBeacons
incompatible with BLE to lock them in to Apple devices. This seems more likely
if consumers are trained to look for "iBeacon compatible" rather than "BLE
compatible"

~~~
matthewmacleod
I would suggest than that other industry participants need to come up with
better popular names for technologies. Bluetooth is a total clusterfuck from
that perspective.

FWIW I've never heard anybody use the term "Airport" when they meant "Wifi".

~~~
cromwellian
I didn't say people refer to Wifi as "Airport", I said calling BLE "iBeacon"
is like calling Wifi "Airport". That is, calling an IEEE spec by a proprietary
trademark.

Yes, BLE needs a better name. Still doesn't change the fact that the media
almost completely ignore what iBeacon is. I see lots of articles that fail to
even mention that it is BLE.

~~~
mrpippy
No one calls BLE "iBeacon". I challenge you to find a reference to an "iBeacon
heart rate monitor" or "iBeacon smart watch"

iBeacon is just an application/profile/use for BLE, one of many.

As for AirPort vs. Wi-Fi, remember that Apple was the first to release
consumer products with 802.11b (in July 1999), and there was no consumer-
friendly brand name at the time (like what Wi-Fi became). 802.11b is not a
consumer friendly name, so they used AirPort.

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higherpurpose
Is iBeacon used for anything other than to push ads to your phone as soon as
you enter a store?

~~~
olefoo
With two or more beacons in range you can triangulate for an accuracy within
centimeters. It's a key enabling technology for Augmented Reality. It's also
how you're going to talk to ambient environmental controls and retrofit older
buildings with situational awareness (thalience) that allows them to be
responsive to the needs of humans passing through.

~~~
untog
Do you have any examples of this? I was excited for this use but everything I
can see suggests that it is highly inaccurate:

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20332856/triangulate-
exa...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20332856/triangulate-example-for-
ibeacons)

~~~
olefoo
This is why it's bleeding edge technology. At the moment it's not very good;
and it won't be for some time. To get to something useful will probably take
multiple iterations.

This is why it's so exciting. If you can build something useful with the
current generation of technology; it will get better.

~~~
untog
But you said:

 _" With two or more beacons in range you can triangulate for an accuracy
within centimeters."_

it appears that is objectively not true. In fact, the technology powering
iBeacons does not seem to be capable of it. So, sure, in a few year's time, a
beacon-like technology that may or may not be called iBeacons will allow for
accurate positioning. So what?

~~~
olefoo
I've seen a demo; it was finicky and had issues and didn't do orientation.

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bdfh42
A lot of players (including Apple now it seems) trying to make money on top of
a standard. there is no IP to be traded in Bluetooth LE itself.

Device suppliers are trying to lock purchasers into particular brands.

Apple presumable are offering the facility of automatic recognition and
filtering of specific devices to fire and pass data to iOS apps.

What we (as developers) need is an open standard for encryption and
recognition so that we can work with multiple suppliers to meet the needs of
our end users.

~~~
mpclark
The way it has turned out is sort of the other way around. Nearly the entire
press corps refers to BLE beacons as "iBeacons", so there is some value to
hardware manufacturers in being able to market their product under that name.

~~~
mcintyre1994
It's unfortunate though because Samsung will obviously never market a feature
of iBeacons.

~~~
aflinik
Can't tell if you're ironic, but they've just patented their own version of
that called Flybell

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swamp40
I gave up trying to register as an iBeacon developer after Apple pushed me to
a $49 Coface credit rating service.

You can't even SEE the specification without spending $49? Come on.

I'm _assuming_ the credit check is so that you can have the privilege of
paying Apple a royalty for every device you stamp "iBeacon" on.

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mcintyre1994
If I'm understanding this correctly, it looks like a smart move by Apple that
will suck for anyone who doesn't want an iDevice? Are they just trying to
market BLE as iBeacon so consumers use it, even though it's clearly never
going to be marketed under that name by any other OEM? They've essentially
found a way to make companies pay to call their BLE iBeacon, paying for Apple
to break the market and make everyone else think BLE is iOS only?

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newman314
What I find interesting is that there has been very little talk about privacy
concerns over iBeacon.

I wonder why that's the case?

~~~
notatoad
What are the privacy concerns? as far as i know, it's a broadcast-only
mechanism - your device doesn't respond to a beacon, if you don't want to
broadcast anything don't set up an iBeacon.

~~~
a-priori
This is exactly it: a beacon just announces itself and provides its ID. It's
up to an app on the _receiving_ device to listen for the beacons it cares
about and react to them.

The beacon has no way of knowing which devices are listening or are in range
of the beacon so there's no privacy issues I can think of.

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colinbartlett
Site is loading very slow for me, so here's the text:
[http://pastebin.com/2WisUL8z](http://pastebin.com/2WisUL8z)

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tylerco
This news sounds fake to me, based merely on a screenshot. This "iBeacon
program" mention of this page is not new.

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arthurcolle
Is this NFC for Apple?

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skrowl
HOPEFULLY NFC beats this, but who knows.

~~~
gress
NFC cannot do what iBeacons do, therefore it cannot _beat_ iBeacon whatever
that would mean.

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JetSpiegel
Still waiting for the superior iBacon.

~~~
pavlov
I'm waiting for iFrancisBacon, the photo-sharing app that turns your selfies
into wall-sized nightmarish canvases of melting paint and distorted limbs.

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FireBeyond
Regardless of the fact that you, and I, realize that two separate teams are
working on these things, it looks really bad (well, at least to me) to have
your flagship OS vulnerable to an amazingly easy to exploit security hole for
multiple days, widely and loudly publicized ...

And nothing comes out. Oh, except this, a specification for pushing ads on you
based on your location.

~~~
FireBeyond
Disagree - down vote? Give me a good reason why it’s not bad PR to not hold
off on posting about iBeacon and better ways to serve us ads while there’s a
glaring hole your only comment on is “coming soon..."

~~~
rimantas
If you missed it there is OS X update. You also probably missed a good book,
check out „Mystical man month" by Fred Brooks.

~~~
FireBeyond
I’m aware there’s an update, now. Who knew that earlier today?

You probably also missed the first sentence of my comment, “aware that there
are multiple, different teams responsible for each”, and that my commentary
was on the PR perception of making your first announcement of the day “Hey,
better ways to serve you ads”, and specifically -not- “they could have pushed
this out faster had they moved a documentation team to security”.

~~~
gress
Your comment that you're aware here are multiple teams involved _makes your
own comment meaningless_.

Gotofail is not even close to _amazingly easy to exploit_ since it requires a
MITM.

iBeacons are not a way to serve better ads, although if you are focused on ad
serving, you might see them that way.

~~~
FireBeyond
How difficult is this to follow?

Despite the fact that internally, there are different teams involved, it
doesn’t lessen the PR perception that your priorities are in the wrong place
when there’s radio silence on this critical security hole (and most reviews
I’ve read seem to be of the opinion that this is a horrific hole), but yet
you’re putting out press releases on a feature that holds little value beyond
advertising.

~~~
gress
It's not hard to follow - it's just that your dressing up your own negative
opinion under the guise of 'the PR perception'. There is no objective thing
that can be called 'the PR perception'.

Also I see you have chosen to repeat the falsehood iBeacon holds little value
beyond advertising. That's just a statement about your lack of understanding
of potential of the technology, but you say it as if it reflects poorly on
Apple instead of you.

