Apple may be looking to boost usage of the iBeacon feature it introduced in iOS 7. Late last week, router manufacturer Securifi spotted FCC documents certifying a new "Apple iBeacon" device, suggesting that Apple wants to offer beacon hardware alongside a list of smaller third-party manufacturers.
As 9to5Mac reported over the weekend, the FCC documents tell us very little about this device or its intended audience. The device was tested only in the same area of the 2.4GHz wireless band used by Bluetooth devices, suggesting that it is dedicated beacon hardware and not some kind of Wi-Fi-enabled multipurpose device. (2.4GHz Wi-Fi operates at slightly different frequencies from those tested here, and all recent Apple hardware with Wi-Fi includes support for 5GHz Wi-Fi as well.)
The only available image of the device, seen above, shows an on/off switch and a micro-USB port that could be used for power or device configuration. Whether the hardware would be made available to the general public, to stores looking to set up iBeacons, or to developers looking to test the feature is unknown.
iBeacons can be used by stores and other places to offer iPhone users context-sensitive notifications through their respective iPhone apps. Beacons set up throughout a store, for example, can let your phone know what store you're in, where that store is located geographically, and what specific department of that store you might be standing in at the moment. The feature takes advantage of Bluetooth 4.0's "advertising" mode, which allows iOS devices and beacons to communicate with each other using small packets of data that won't drain the batteries in the beacons or the devices too quickly. (For the curious, Apple's iBeacon for Developers site explains more about how the technology works.)
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