Companies have ventured into providing indoor interactive maps including Google. Large malls have developed their own mobile apps that provide indoor maps and directories, some even interactive. However, Apple is looking to join and take over the scene with the ability to map an entire indoor space without any additional hardware except the latest iPhone!

Sources show a new app that was officially published to the App Store by Apple called “Indoor Survey” that requires special permissions to log onto and use. Apparently this app will allow the user to broadcast their location and through the phones GPS and other sensors, beam information about the space indoors.

If this app succeeds and works as described, you could safely assume that any well-visited and popular indoor venue will be mapped. The consumers may not benefit from this as much as the corporations, in particular all the retail stores in malls! If consumers are broadcasting their location (relatively accurately) indoors, a retail store can ping a potential customer through Apple’s iBeacon service very easily, notifying the customer of new promotions and incentives. Maybe you won’t be greeted by a friendly employee handing you a sale flyer for much longer!