Register apple com indoor

Register apple com indoor

Version: 1.0.4
Last update: November 15, 2021

Finding your way inside a large and unfamiliar building can be difficult, and when you’re pressed for time, not knowing which way to go can be incredibly stressful.

Apple is trying to make indoor wayfinding easier in two ways.

First, by adding select locations to Apple Maps. These indoor maps provide a beautiful 2D and 3D mapping experience together with a detailed directory of important locations within the facility. There are over 80 airports as well as hundreds of shopping centers live in Apple Maps today.

Second, Apple is providing a way for the developer community to add indoor maps to their own apps and websites, whether the maps be for the general public or for their staff. In either case, Apple allows the facility owner to have full control over who is permitted to see the indoor map.

Indoor Positioning: A Particular Challenge

Just having an indoor map is not sufficient for wayfinding. You also need to know where you are inside the building.

However, when indoors, satellite positioning systems signals can be blocked and as a result location accuracy can be significantly reduced.

Access to your accurate indoor location, or “blue dot,” is a fundamental requirement to support indoor wayfinding. There are also many other use cases where an accurate location is vital. These include room-finders and apps for the mobility or visually impaired.

Indoor positioning can also be used to improve enterprise efficiency when employed in apps for building operations, facilities management, situational awareness or emergency response. Apple provides organizations with the tools to enable accurate indoor positioning inside their facilities by themselves.

Who should join the Indoor Program

The Indoor Maps Program is appropriate for the owners or operators of almost any large venue, public or private.

Indoor maps for your apps and websites?	Indoor positioning for iOS?	Indoor maps in Apple Maps?
Airport	вњ“	вњ“	вњ“
Convention center	вњ“	generally not
Corporate campus	вњ“	вњ“
Factory	вњ“	вњ“
Hospital	вњ“	вњ“
Hotel or resort	вњ“	вњ“
Museum	вњ“	вњ“
Shopping center	вњ“	вњ“
Stadium	вњ“	вњ“
Subway station	вњ“	вњ“
Train or bus station	вњ“	вњ“
University	вњ“	вњ“
Warehouse	вњ“	sometimes not

The exceptions are as follows:

Convention centers

Accurate indoor positioning requires a relatively stable Wi-Fi network to be present. In the exhibition halls of convention centers this is generally not the case as the Wi-Fi is commonly changed for each event.

Warehouses

It can be difficult to provide accurate indoor in large empty warehouses. However, if the warehouse is filled with equipment, shelves or other objects this is less of an issue and indoor positioning can be made to work well.

Small buildings, offices, shops or restaurants

The basic rule is that if the space is so small you can’t get lost, then indoor positioning is not appropriate.

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Register apple com indoor

Apple is adding indoor maps of airports to Apple Maps.

These indoor maps are always based on data Apple receives directly from the account established by the organization that owns or operates the facility. The published maps will only show the publicly accessible areas. In an airport this includes the areas beyond the security checkpoints, sometimes known as the “sterile” areas.

Your organization can choose to authorize Apple to display the floor plans for an eligible location in Apple Maps. If the venue is then chosen for inclusion to Apple Maps, the Indoor Program team will work closely with your organization to make sure that the maps are correct and kept up-to-date, and that only publicly accessible areas are shown in the Map.

While “back-of-house” or “secure areas” are not shown in Apple Maps, these can still be shown in your own apps or websites, using the maps and apps that you develop for your staff.

It is important to note that the indoor maps displayed in Apple Maps are not made available to developers via MapKit or MapKit JS. In this way your organization retains control over which developers are able to use indoor maps of your facilities.

At time of release of this document, the only property types being added to Apple Maps are airports. When additional property types are added, if a newly eligible property has been authorized for use in Apple Maps, the organization will be notified.

Indoor Maps in Your Own Apps and Websites

The Indoor Maps Program can help streamline the inclusion of indoor maps in your apps and websites. For example, you might want to create an indoor wayfinding app for patients at your hospital or an app for your campus allowing students to report emergencies in a building, or a facilities management app for your staff, so that employees can easily report broken fixtures or rooms that need servicing.

In order to make these apps and websites truly useful you will also need indoor positioning. Apple provides the tools that make it easy to enable Apple indoor positioning technology inside your buildings.

Apple indoor positioning works in any iOS app as well as websites viewed in Safari or other WebKit compatible browsers on iOS devices.

In order to use indoor maps and enable indoor positioning you will need to:

1. Convert floor plans of your buildings to Indoor Mapping Data Format (IMDF) and upload the files to your organization’s Apple Business Register account.
2. Perform a radio frequency (RF) survey of your buildings using Apple’s Indoor Survey app to enable indoor positioning.
3. Display the indoor maps in your apps and websites and use Apple indoor positioning via the CoreLocation API or Safari on iOS.

Once your floor plans are converted to IMDF they become easy to display in your apps and websites. Both MapKit and MapKit JS provide APIs with controls for a more stylized presentation of your indoor map.

About Apple Indoor Positioning

Apple indoor positioning can typically provide GPS level accuracy when inside a building. It also returns floor level as an integer value: zero for ground floor, positive numbers for floors above ground and negative numbers for floors below ground.

The technology determines the device location by using the sensors in the iOS device to determine direction of travel and speed, and by using radio frequency (RF) “fingerprints.” It relies on the fact that the RF patterns emitted by fixed Wi-Fi access points inside a building are unique depending on location. The RF patterns are measured using Apple’s Indoor Survey app, running on an iPhone, and associated with known latitude and longitude locations inside the building. The Indoor Survey app requires a floor plan of the building in IMDF to be correctly geo-referenced to latitude and longitude. Thus IMDF allows the Indoor Survey app to tie the RF patterns to precise locations.

Once a building is surveyed using the Indoor Survey app, indoor positioning is generally available within 24 hours. It is accessed via the Core Location APIs or via Safari on iOS. The Core Location APIs are smart enough to use positioning information from satellites when the device is outside and use the Wi-Fi fingerprinting when the device is inside. This makes it incredibly easy for developers to deal with indoor/outdoor transitions as there is only the one API to call in all situations.

It is important to note:

• An iOS device does not need to be connected to any Wi-Fi network in order to get an indoor position fix
• Wi-Fi must be «on» on the device
• The indoor positioning technology uses 2.4GHz Wi-Fi exclusively. If your organization uses 5GHz then the 2.4GHz radio in each Wi-Fi access point should be turned on in “beaconing mode” so that it is broadcasting a RF pattern. The SSID for the 2.4GHz radio can be hidden so that no devices will attempt to connect to that SSID
• The indoor positioning technology does not use BLE beacons
• Any 2.4GHz Wi-Fi in the area is used for indoor positioning. This could be public, secure, hidden or even third party Wi-Fi from neighboring buildings.
• Coverage of indoor positioning can be increased by simply installing additional Wi-Fi access points and enabling beaconing mode. The access points do not need to be connected to any network and their SSID can be hidden so they are not discoverable.

About IMDF

IMDF stands for Indoor Mapping Data Format. IMDF is a data model that is used to describe an indoor space. IMDF is output as a set of GeoJSON files. There are many APIs available to display GeoJSON, making it easy to add indoor maps to your apps or websites. The easiest way to do this is to use MapKit or MapKit JS. Both include APIs for displaying your indoor map in IMDF in Apple Maps. IMDF is intended for the global exchange of indoor data.

On February 23, 2021, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) added IMDF 1.0.0 to the OGC Standards Baseline as a Community Standard.

Apple uses IMDF inside the Indoor Survey app so that Apple indoor positioning can be enabled inside a building.

There are a number of ways that you can create IMDF from your floor plans.

If your organization owns or operates airports or shopping centers then Apple can help convert your floor plans, which may be in CAD, BIM or GIS formats, to IMDF. Apple will also consider converting floor plans of other large public venues to IMDF on a case by case basis.

Indoor Map Updates

Changes can happen frequently inside buildings. Most common changes involve changes to the occupants of rooms and spaces. For example, in an airport the retail tenants can change often, so the space occupied by a fast food restaurant today might be occupied by a coffee shop next month.

Floor plan changes happen too, usually less frequently than occupant changes. In many cases floor plan changes involve simple splitting and merging of spaces, but in some environments the construction never stops.

Updating Indoor Maps in Apple Maps

Apple Maps shows indoor maps of airports and selected shopping centers. Apple is keen to make sure that the indoor maps are kept up-to-date. In order to do that Apple needs to stay in constant contact with the owners and operators of these facilities.

Occupant changes can be communicated via an updated IMDF or via a simple spreadsheet. Structural changes to the building can be communicated via an updated IMDF or floor plans delivered in CAD, BIM or GIS formats.

Updating Indoor maps in Your Own Apps and Websites

You can update the maps in your own apps and websites on your own. There is no need for any communication with Apple to make the updates. However, if you make major structural changes to your building, for example if you add a new floor or a new wing to a building, then a re-survey of the building using Apple’s Indoor Survey app is required in order to provide indoor positioning in the new parts of the building. Refer to Indoor Positioning Updates

Indoor Positioning Updates

Apple indoor positioning relies on the unique RF patterns created by the radios inside Wi-Fi access points. Minor changes to the set of Wi-Fi access points, such as the addition or removal of a Wi-Fi access point, will have little to no effect on indoor positioning performance. However, if the set of Wi-Fi access points is upgraded or relocated in a building or facility then a re‐survey of the building using Apple’s Indoor Survey app will be required to keep the indoor positioning performant.

Major changes to interior walls might also affect the quality of indoor positioning and may require a re-survey.

Indoor positioning can be tested using the Indoor Survey app by using it in ‘Positioning’ mode. Your organization is free to perform the re-survey using Apple’s Indoor Survey app. If Apple has already added indoor maps of your buildings to Apple Maps, then Apple may also perform the re- survey on your behalf.

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Register apple com indoor

Will Apple add indoor maps of your buildings to Apple Maps?

Apple will add indoor maps of the publicly accessible areas of airports to Apple Maps, but only after having received the explicit permission from the owner/operator. Apple Maps does not include indoor maps of other kinds of buildings, public or private.

Will Apple make your IMDF files or indoor maps available to third parties, for example Apple developers?

No. Indoor maps shown in Apple Maps are not made available via MapKit or MapKit JS. In that way your organization retains control over which developers have access to your indoor map. You can easily display your indoor map on top of the MapKit/MapKit JS map using the available overlay APIs in MapKit and MapKit JS.

Do I need to re-survey if I change the location of my Wi-Fi access points?

Generally not for minor changes, for example the addition or deletion of a Wi-Fi access point. However, if you replace your entire Wi-Fi network a re-survey of the building will need to be completed using Apple’s Indoor Survey app. Major changes to interior walls might also affect the quality of indoor positioning and might cause the need for a re-survey.

How do I get access to the current floor level information provided by Apple indoor positioning?

Floor level is provided by the Core Location API and also by the Safari browser on iOS. It is returned as an integer: zero for ground floor; positive numbers for above ground, negative numbers for below ground. You can correlate these number to the floor names in your app or website.

Does the user need a data connection to use indoor positioning?

As the user approaches the building, indoor positioning data is automatically downloaded to a user’s iOS device. This requires a data connection. Once this data is downloaded indoor positioning can work well with no data connection.

Do I need to enhance my Wi-Fi network to offer indoor positioning?

If there is sufficient coverage to support Wi-Fi connectivity throughout the building, whether the Wi-Fi be public or private, then it should be sufficient to support indoor positioning. The Wi-Fi access points must be broadcasting a radio signal at 2.4GHz. No connection to any Wi-Fi network is required for indoor positioning, but Wi-Fi on the device must be switched on.

Are BLE beacons required to enable indoor positioning?

No. Apple does not use beacons for indoor positioning. However iBeacon can be used to complement indoor positioning, for example to trigger an alert on a user’s iPhone when they approach a customer service desk.

Does Apple provide an indoor wayfinding API?

No. There are a number of third party developers that specialize in providing this capability. See section on third party platforms.

Does Apple indoor positioning work on platforms other than iOS?

Which third party platforms support IMDF?

Apple works with a number of third parties that provide platforms for creating and updating IMDF as well as APIs to display IMDF. Some of these platforms also provide APIs for other indoor features such as indoor wayfinding. See table below.

Provider/Product	Create/Edit IMDF	Manage Content	Map Display API	Indoor Way-finding API	Notes
Autodesk/Bim360 Ops	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	Autodesk BIM 360 Ops is a mobile- first asset and maintenance management solution. Transform a Revit file into IMDF for use in BIM 360 Ops with Apple Indoor Positioning to show technicians and vendors a path to their assigned ticket or a nearby asset, track mobile assets with iBeacons, and view a list of new tickets as a heat map on a floor plan for better triaging.
Compathnion	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	Provides site surveys, SDK toolkits, content management platform, and analytics services using different big data, artificial intelligence and edge computing technologies.
Dent Reality	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	Augmented Reality navigation and Indoor Maps, for shopping centres, airports, campuses and more. End- to-end solution, with a full-featured IMDF map builder, and mobile SDK.
Esri/ArcGIS Indoors	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	ArcGIS Indoors provides an indoor mapping system for assembling, managing, and sharing building and campus information.
EVS Software and IMDFaaS	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	EVS provides iOS native warehouse management solutions; their IMDF Service is focused on quickly creating IMDF maps.
IBM/Tririga	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	IBM TRIRIGA delivers insightful solutions for intelligent real estate and facilities management. The linked code pattern enables integration of IMDF and Indoor Positioning into all Tririga web apps.
KNS/Venuex	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	Provides a platform for indoor mapping with SDKs, APIs and a Content Management System (CMS). Venuex works with shopping centers, airports, hospitals and universities.
LocusLabs	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	Provides a content management system for indoor mapping. LocusLabs works with many airports and casinos.
MappedIn	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	Provides a content management system for indoor mapping. MappedIn works with many shopping center operators.
Mapxus	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	Provides an indoor mapping technology platform that provides indoor map services for global applications.
Mapsted Corp.	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	Mapsted provides a full suite of services for IMDF maps across their products, offering beacon-free indoor location technology for a wide range of industries.
Navv-Systems	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	Provides an hospital oriented indoor mapping solution that removes waste and improve productivity by focusing on coordinating staff without communicating patient information.
Office of Museum Research	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	OMR provides full-service indoor mapping, positioning, digital building management, and custom software development with a focus on value- driven customer service, and a commitment to open formats like IMDF.
Point Consulting	✔	✔	✔	✔	Point Consulting’s Point Map solution enables the creation and integration of indoor maps and way- finding into mobile apps and web sites.
Safe Software/FME	вњ”	Safe Software provides a general purpose platform for data conversion and data pipelines. The platform includes comprehensive data format translation tools and validators for IMDF. To learn more contact partners@safe.com
Visioglobe	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	Visioglobe provides a Saas solution for indoor Map creation, that allows IMDF format import and export. The solution includes Web and native mobile SDK for visualization, leveraging Apple Indoor Positioning System.
YAP	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	YAP specializes in visualization for retail, healthcare, and museums. YAP provides industry-leading mobile app development services with expertise in iOS, Augmented Reality and indoor maps.
YinzCam	вњ”	вњ”	вњ”	Specializes in the complete Sports Fan experience. Venue maps, mobile loyalty, in-stadium replays, augmented reality, and more.

Where is the Indoor Maps Program available?

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