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Kontakt.io Beacons Are Unaffected by Changes to iBeacon

You may have recently read the story from Doug Thompson of Beekn – that Apple is “locking down” the ability to manually input, edit, and scan for UUIDs (Universally Unique Identifiers). Including the ability to edit Major and Minor values.
While this decision will have some effect in a few segments of the Beacon / iBeacon industry, overall this is not really a concern to customers (especially our customers).
The reason why? Because we were already prepared for this occurrence.

Apple has already long prevented anyone from randomly scanning for UUIDs, so the only real change is that you cannot manually input a new UUID. Instead the UUID must already be included in the requisite app you download to access a venue’s Beacons.
This hinders or prevents a few functions e.g. scanning for Beacons in the wild like what WikiBeacon is doing – but by and large this is a minor change that will not affect the majority of Beacon applications.
When you buy Beacons from us however, you are already assigned a UUID (along with Major and Minor values) as soon as your account is automatically created upon purchase. Once you log into the web panel, or sign into your account using a micro-location enabled app, you will always have access to your Beacons no matter what.
Furthermore – you can still manually edit your Beacon credentials (at least through our system). You only need to use the admin mode in our micro-location app to make the changes you want. We are also able to change these values for you upon your request.
So while this policy change will not affect our products and services in any way – you may also wonder how this might affect the industry?
The only real “big effect” here is that universal apps (i.e. apps that can access any beacon in any venue) will become much rarer, or disappear entirely from the iOS marketplace (at least for now). While boutique and branded apps will become the industry norm (i.e. end users must download your app to see your beacons).
Thoughts?
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