Apple Gets Ready to Release Indoor Positioning Service

Over the weekend Apple apparently pushed out an indoor positioning app ‘Indoor Survey’ into the iOS App Store.

“By dropping ‘points’ on a map within the Survey App, you indicate your position within the venue as you walk through,” reads the app description. “As you do so, the indoor Survey App measures the radio frequency (RF) signal data and combines it with an iPhone’s sensor data. The end result is indoor positioning without the need to install special hardware.”

Interesting in the sense it appears to be an app that stores can use to map their interiors with iOS devices.  It’s not a crowd sourced indoor mapping application.  This dovetails nicely with the other announcement this morning about their new Maps Indoor service.

For now, Apple is focusing its efforts on a handful of venues that meet specific criteria. These requirements include:

• The venue must be accessible to the general public
• Only locations that draw more than a million visitors per year
• Apple requires “complete, accurate, and scaled reference maps” for consideration
• The venue must have Wi-Fi throughout, and an official app available on the App Store

The groundwork is set for Apple to start mapping interiors of these large open venues.  But with an app and an iPhone, clearly Apple is planning to scale this out to just about every indoor location.  I suspect we’ll see stadiums, amusement parks and other entertainment venues appear first over the next year.