Apple’s iBeacon: Fizzle or Sizzle?

As successful as Apple has been with most of its product launches, it still has some products that haven’t taken off, such as Apple’s beleaguered iBeacon platform.

Bloomberg Business investigated the factors surrounding the lackluster performance of Apple’s iBeacon platform, all of which have conspired to strip away much of the hype and potential proponents like Hari Gottipati, an independent tech consultant, saw when the Apple updated its line of iPhones to accept location-based marketing requests. However, no matter where experts like Gottipati look for Apple’s footprint in the world of beacons, they’re usually left hanging.

“I go to a lot of malls, but I don’t see as many beacons as I expected,” Gottipati told Bloomberg Business. “It’s very disappointing.”

Steve Cheney, co-founder of beacon startup Estimote, told Bloomberg that retailers may have been expecting a more streamlined and no-assembly-required experience with a software product from Apple. However, as the head of a business that has been slowly building a base of retail partners with beacon tech, Cheney isn’t surprised about the lack of measurable success for Apple’s iBeacons.

“People — associating it with Apple — expected it to work out of the box, so to speak,” Cheney told Bloomberg. “It is happening at about the pace we expected.”

One factor that could be holding beacons back from reaching their true potential might just be that retailers have no control over what customers think. If everything works smoothly and conveniently from a client-facing perspective, that’s still no guarantee that shoppers will respond to a technology that, if merchants are still struggling with it, hasn’t figured out exactly how it needs to operate in a convenience-first world.