Can I use beacons to get a customer's name on approach? - ibeacon

I'd like to know if it's possible to access personal information supplied within an app on a user's device and transmit that information on approach?
Example: Customer has my coffee shop app installed on their device and is logged into their account (where they have provided their first name). As they enter the shop, the barista can see their name on a tablet behind the counter and greet them by their name.
If so, can anyone point me in the direction of a demo or example?

Yes, that is possible, but it has to be done entirely in your app.
app detects the iBeacon
app sends the name (likely entered in the
app settings) to some sort of service (rest api, web service,
etc...)
the app that the barista has access to is notified of the
person approaching.
For a demo app you probably want to look at push notifications really, the iBeacon side is pretty boring for this use case.
As a total aside, make sure this sort of thing is opt-in - this could be creepy, and people don't like creepy.

Related

What do I need to make a website that references a table of anonymous users to notify using SMS?

This is a project I'm working on for use between people at my university.
The idea is simple, it's a website where people can submit anonymous comments to other people based on a unique identifier, which is just a random number. People sign up with their unique identifier and their phone number, which would be saved together. Other people hop on the website and submit a comment with the unique identifier, which is sent via SMS to the corresponding phone number.
Conceptually I feel like this should be easy, the website just searches a table for the identifier and then uses an SMS API to send a message to the associated phone number. Also dynamically adds new lines to the table as people register.
I am real new to web development (if you couldn't tell), but I'm not afraid of a little code so I'm figuring it out. My problem is I have no idea big-picture-wise what building blocks I need to connect together. I think I found a good service called Twilio for the SMS API. I think I need to pay for web hosting, but do I need to rent server time? It's a real simple operation but the data also needs somewhere to live. I want it to be a long-term installation so I don't want to host it myself.
I would be very grateful if someone could real quick make a shopping list of the components I need to make this happen, or just any other tips if you've got 'em

Is it possible to achieve my goal by using Beacons

I have a mobile IOS application which is basically group chat oriented. I was wondering if I can make it beacon-enabled app. With other words, application which can detect beacons, determine id, receive short ads etc. I am quite new to beacons, still reading a lot about it. I found this article which makes me believe that maybe it is possible to achieve my goal.
I want my app, except for its original functionality, to be able to:
Detect a beacon (even if app is in background, without the need to have been paired or whatever)
Receive simple ads by the beacon (while using the app in a certain mode, to be able to project the ads on phone's screen)
Read some real-time info(if required by the user) like: speed(if moving beacon), temperature etc.
In order to achieve all that I would like not to disturb the end user by making him download additional stuff related to the beacon. I want him to have my app and that's all.
You can monitor for beacons while your app is in the background. You can do this by using the CoreLocation Framework or by using a framework of your beacon supplier. (e.g. Estimote)
To the ads: The beacon will only deliver its pre configured ids. (UUID + Major + Minor). If you want to receive ads, you must have a Webservice that will get your beacon ids and return you the ad to display.
(If the ads never change, you can put them directly into your app without a webservice)
How you will show the ads in your app is completely open to you.
I don't really understand what you mean with real-time-info. There are beacons that also send you TLM. So you can get the temperature and the battery level of the beacon. I've never seen moving beacons or beacons that can transmit their speed.
Some useful links:
https://developer.apple.com/ibeacon/
https://xamoom.com/en/2016/07/ibeacon-for-developers/

Parse app for clients

I have made a Parse-based app that allows the user to send a push notification to everyone who downloads the app. It's a kind of quick public address system for a congregation, school, club, etc.
Other leaders have expressed an interest in my app for their communities. But these people are not tech-savvy and have no interest in becoming Apple developers for $100 a year, so building custom apps for them is not an option. Even if I did it for them, I would be concerned that they would mess something up that would require a lot of time on my part to repair. They just want to use the app for their communities.
My question: Could I make custom apps for these groups, keep them on my iTunesConnect account, and simply make a new Parse account for each app? That way, the group leaders would only need to know how to log into Parse and send a push notification on the Parse website.
Thank you,
Eli
You could. It could be done with a single app that everyone downloads and then configures to connect it to their specific parse app.
It's possible that you could write the app so it doesn't know the parse account details and they need to be entered on the device. It's also possible that you could supply that detail with an invite e-mail that opens the app and has the details in the URL query.

How do you acquire usage data from a webOS app and store that data remotely?

I am new to webOS development. I have one app in the app store and in the next update to the app I would like to be able to identify the age of users, their location, how long they use the app, which features they use the most/least and then store that data in a database. How do I do this? Many thanks in advance for your help.
Well, that's a pretty big question. Here's an outline of what to do, with some notes.
First, you're probably not going to be able to get age unless you ask the user directly and they tell you. Also, you're only going to get location if the application is location-aware and the user permits you to collect that data (when you install a location-aware application, it asks the user if they're okay with the fact that the application will be able to get their location).
As for how long they use the app and which features they use, that's easier. Depending on the granularity you need/want to capture, you can just record time stamps when a user starts and stops using a particular feature, such as when scene activate and deactivate methods fire. As long as you store feature name and timestamp, that should give you what you're looking for.
Then comes to question of collection. However you store it in the app, you have a couple of choices for how to get it out of the app. Unless you can get your users to just email the data to you, probably the easiest thing to do would be to create a web app (possibly with no user facing output, since you're just using it to collect data) using something like Google App Engine that gives you a URL you can send a POST request to using an HTTP request. Depending on how you set it up, it could do the request every time you collect a timestamp (bad for battery use, though), just occasionally, or only when the app is doing cleanup (possibly a problem if you don't get the request off in time).
I'd recommend taking a look online at how people do this type of thing in iPhone apps to get a good sense of how to do this type of thing. If you hit problems getting particular things to work, you can of course come here to StackOverflow with specific coding questions.

Can I Send a Text Message from My Computer to a Cell Phone?

Is it possible to send a text message from a computer to a cell phone? I'd like to be able to do this with Ruby, not quite sure what it entails. After seeing GrandCentral and Google Voice, it seems like it's not that bad.
Is it possible? How do I get started!
Yes, it's fairly trivial.
Depends on whether you want to pay or not; some providers offer email addresses for each number that is with them, otherwise you can get an account with an SMS gateway (find one in your country, or try clickatell) and then just buy credits. They'll have various interfaces: Email, HTTP, more.
check smsroaming.com it provide services to send sms from website and also have desktop application for it. including iphone, blackberry and facebook application for it.
i hope they will help you to manage sms.
regards
Azy

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