iBeacon App Development Challenges, Tips & Tricks You Need to Know
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In today’s digital era, it has become easier to locate a restaurant or a shopping complex using GPS or location-based services. But, how would you locate or navigate the place where GPS is not working? This is where iBeacon technology comes into the picture. iBeacon is a Bluetooth-enabled Apple version of beacon technology that helps you to broadcast and receive data in a narrow range. It works in two parts, one as a sender device which is a Broadcaster-beacon device, and the other as a receiver which is a mobile application. iBeacon app development enables people to communicate with various e-gadgets around the world like home automation appliances, automobile chips, electric switches, etc.
So, if you’re looking for an effective solution that helps people locate or navigate in the absence of GPS, then the iBeacon app is the best solution. You can hire an iBeacon app development company for your iBeacon app development project. While iBeacon app development services offer plenty of benefits, the development of these apps is a difficult process. Developers face many challenges during the development of iBeacon apps. This article throws light on all the major challenges, tips, and tricks that can help address these issues.
How Does an iBeacon App Work?
An iBeacon app allows users to communicate among the electronic devices around the world. Building an iBeacon application is more difficult than building an ordinary mobile application.
Here’s how an iBeacon application works:
In simple words, Beacons typically work as a battery that supplies power to the transmitter device for an uninterrupted or periodical emission of radio wave signals. Electronic devices that use iBeacon apps can easily find the Beacon and start transferring information like transmitter ID and small packet data. iBeacon facilitates uni-directional communication and uses packet data for sending push notifications, SMS, the app prompts, and other relevant functions. However, today’s modern electronic devices come with iBeacon technology that enables the sending and receiving of data.
Which Industries Benefit from iBeacon App Development?
Here are some of the industries that are leveraging iBeacon app development services in various work scenarios:
- Fitness Industry - iBeacon apps help in keeping track of accuracy and metrics of sports gear, thanks to used BLE sensors in the system.
- Fashion Industry - iBeacon apps help in sending push notifications to the customers’ devices with messages related to the ad campaign, store, events, and more. This helps in creating brand awareness among your targeted audience.
- Entertainment and Hospitality - iBeacon apps help in monitoring growth and keeping track of their daily activities.
- Warehouse Management - With iBeacon applications, one can keep track of inventory and identify products through their exact physical locations.
- Health and Medicare - With the use of iBeacon applications, healthcare professionals can monitor everyday progress and other health movements and activities of patients.
When it comes to iBeacon app development, developers face various problems specific to the use of iBeacon. Some of the common problems have been discussed below:
iBeacon applications can help to estimate the physical distance between a user and a broadcasting beacon. Once you know the location of a beacon, you can easily deduce the location of its use within a small range. For this, mapping is required between the beacon and the user. When the mapping is done, the application’s backend starts collecting the essential information of the user such as his/her exact physical location, time spent, and application context. Using this information, you can learn about the interest of the user so that you can send time-based coupons to that particular beacon’s location and user’s preferences.
These are some of the factors that you need to keep in mind along with the following factors while deciding the features of an iBeacon application.
- Incorporate key elements that will enhance the user experience.
- Ensure user’s privacy
- Incorporate features that keep the app working even if the beacon goes out of range.
This is another major challenge that is encountered while rendering the iBeacon app development services. Users need to grant location permissions to enable this feature. In addition to this, the Bluetooth feature needs to be turned on and the app should be aware that only a few devices support beacons. Therefore, you need to consider various states of the application to use beacons successfully.
Sometimes, it is always a good idea to wait until the last moment to seek permission from users rather than annoying them even before they have tried your application. Moreover, it is also essential to make users aware of the importance of data privacy and security.
As iBeacon provides uni-directional radio communication, therefore, there’s no option of creating a bi-directional communication between the beacon and the iBeacon app. As a result, beacons that broadcast cannot identify the users’ devices. The more advanced iBeacon, however, offers two-way communication, and thus, they can easily connect with the mobile devices and transfer data back to the server. Moreover, as this is not a part of the iBeacon specification, it will drain the battery of your device significantly.
Therefore, the best option is to allow the app to work on its own as it will help you to connect with the backend and update data with the registered users and customize the app accordingly.
iBeacons function using the Bluetooth low energy technology. So, an iBeacon app development company must be prepared for dealing with problems related to external signal interactions. Since the Bluetooth low energy lies in a similar spectrum band as the Wi-Fi interface, iBeacons may face problems in finding the user device.
The signals of the beacon may fluctuate because of several factors including device power, temperature, etc. Thus, the accuracy of signals among different iBeacon hardware manufacturers and the application may differ based on the type and variable information captured by them.
Since an iBeacon application uses a wide range of variables, it is important to have different business logic scripts for extracting out data accordingly. Whenever an application comes in close proximity to any beacon, it will get access to the business logic script and obtain a list of all users at that beacon. Scripts provide filtered information and also attempt to interpret the meaning of the information. However, in certain situations like when the device goes out of the range of the beacon, it becomes quite tricky for the app to extract accurate information as the updates might not have been recorded in real-time.
An iBeacon app development company can implement time-based heuristics to solve this issue and decide if the users are still present or not. Besides this, other business logic scripts can be used to observe the latest trends, statistical analysis, and draw conclusions.
One of the biggest problems that iBeacon app developers face during the iBeacon app development process is navigating the app store. To solve this problem, it is crucial to clearly explain the objective and the app’s functioning in the public description as well as review notes. Also do not forget to add a demo video to explain the features of the app along with a battery disclaimer towards the end of the description.
So, these are the common challenges that an iBeacon app development company encounters while developing an iBeacon application. To overcome these challenges, they can leverage built-in tools and client library extensions so that they can render iBeacon app development effortlessly without any redundant technical glitches. While building an iBeacon application, you must be prepared to manage permissions, user expectations, unpredictable hardware, and signal issues to offer the best quality services to your app users. You may come across many mobile app development agencies, offering the iBeacon app development services. You can hire an experienced mobile app development agency that fits your project requirements and budget. So make sure to choose wisely.