While iBeacon has yet to become more mainstream, you’ve probably heard stories of how it has been used for all sorts of purposes. Basically for those unfamiliar with iBeacon, it relies on Bluetooth and your proximity. Say you enter a store which has iBeacon. From there your phone could then be prompted about deals the store has today and so on.
As it turns out, it seems that Google had something similar in the works called Google Here. However we said “had” because according to a report from Fortune, it seems that Alphabet’s CEO Larry Page decided to kill off the project as it proved to be a bit too invasive for their liking, and that they weren’t sure if enough retailers would get on board for it to be useful.
Like we said the idea is similar to iBeacon, however instead of relying on Bluetooth, Google Here was said to rely on Google Maps and your location (hence the invasive nature of the feature). If it detects you’re at the supermarket, it could launch a loyalty card on your phone. If you were at the train station, a train schedule could pop up, and so on.
The idea is to provide an experience for users who go to specific locations who might not have downloaded the app, like Starbucks where Google Here could prompt the user to download the Starbucks app in order to reap its rewards. It would also help to further monetize Google Maps as it would allow Google to push notifications and essentially ads without the user having to search for it.
It sounds like it would have been an interesting but potentially annoying feature. After all no one likes having their phones go off on them all the time, right? But what say you? Is Google Here a feature you would have gotten on board with?