Larry Magid: Apple Introduces 'iBeacon' Indoor Location Software

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS)— Apple is rolling out new indoor location software called iBeacon. It's designed to track customers around Apple stores so customer service representatives can offer you more information and products.

I'm not sure why they need it in an Apple Store since they're not very big, but I could see it coming in very handy in a large department store or at a trade show like the Computer Electronics Show (CES), which I'll be at next month in Las Vegas.

I'm not exactly sure what Apple plans to do from a marketing standpoint, but I imagine it would go something like this: a man walking in a mall passes by a department store and suddenly he's notified on his phone through an app that there's a 25-percent off sale going on at the store he's passing by.

Of course, as we've discussed before, this would likely be an opt-in service because of the privacy implications.

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