A very smart post about how Apple’s indoor positioning system represents a huge advance in how “smart” our smartphones really are — and, consequently, how iBeacon represents a huge opportunity for new innovations and businesses.

So iBeacon really is the digital equivalent of something we all take for granted: analog human sight.

Because up until this point smartphones have had no idea what is around them, closing the attribution loop in online-to-offline commerce has been impossible. And solving this is a trillion dollar problem. No company has ever had success (monetarily) with online-to-offline search or discovery, because you can’t go to an app and carry that discovery process to your offline environment. Yes, you can absolutely use a search query to find a place to go, but when you get there no one knows you arrived because of that service. In fact, your phone has no idea you arrived! Your smartphone is actually contextually dumb, blissfully going about its job missing this fifth sense.

The full must-read article is available at Steve Cheney’s blog.