Update: Nearby Notifications no longer exists. Follow instead what happens at Physical Web Association. Abiro can also provide a solution for Eddystone-URL.
Support for Eddystone in Android is great, as it’s integrated (via Google Play Services). When detecting an Eddystone beacon for the first time it will even ask you there and then whether you want information from beacons or not.
The situation is not the same in iOS, and Google has for unknown reasons not cared about making their own Eddystone/Nearby app there, even though that could have established Eddystone as the industry standard.
There are choices though, via the venerable, working but no longer maintained Physical Web app, as well as other apps from beacon and platform providers.
See Eddystone-URL in practice for information about how to use Eddystone-URL on iOS and Android.
Showing promise in terms of improvements in this area is Physical Web Association, that has the ambition to carry on the Physical Web concept. It’s yet unclear where that will lead in terms of long term market adoption, but we are in contact with them to stay on top of things.
My hope is that a concrete result in the short term will be a better iOS app for Eddystone beacons, so there’s no hindrance for using Eddystone-URL.