You would be forgiven for never having heard of Apple iBeacon. It was released along with iOS 7 last year, but only warranted a single mention in the keynote speech and news coverage afterwards.

So what is it and why should we care?

Essentially, iBeacon is Apple’s answer to NFC. The capability is built into the iPhone 5s and iOS 7 and is just waiting to be used. It’s a location awareness technology that works in a similar way to GPS, only on a much smaller scale.

For instance, let’s say you are in a store with an active iBeacon. The store can send you lists of special offers, coupons, reviews and recommendations on its pro-ducts. It offers a way for stores to communicate with you in a fast, easy way. It can also be ignored if you prefer to. You could pick something up off the shelf and pay for it immediately using iBeacon, too. That’s without having to go anywhere near a checkout or having to use NFC.

iBeacon uses BLE, or Bluetooth Low Energy, to work. It’s similar to standard Bluetooth, only it needs much less power to work and is much less of a drain on your battery. While limited to tiny data packets, it is ideal for this kind of app.

The technology behind BLE is open standard. So while iBeacon itself is the usual Apple walled garden, the technology is not. Therefore other apps and hardware can be developed to take advantage of it. That means that other iOS apps and even Android ones can be built around BLE using the same model.

Compared to NFC, iBeacon has an effective range of up to 50 metres, rather than two inches. This allows much more freedom in the transmission of data and in the usability of the technology. Also, a store would need only one beacon per 50-metre radius to cover the whole store. On the other hand, NFC chips need to be attached to every product in order to work properly. In large retail scenarios there are obvious cost and logistic benefits to iBeacon.

Let’s be clear, though. iBeacon is nothing new. Bluetooth in stores has been in use for almost six years. Retailers have had the means to push data to receptive phones for a while now, and most have chosen not to.

While iBeacon and BLE have made the technology easier to live with and less of a strain on your battery, it is by no means groundbreaking. Neither is it a certainty in the future of retail. It’s just a message of intent – one possible future for retail and an exciting one at that.