Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

10+ Things to Know About the New AirTag 2

macaddiict said:
I think the main reason is Apple doesn’t build or test these devices to be worn by living beings. There are a lot of moral and usability concerns here, and AirTags aren’t designed for that. So beyond the things you already mentioned, the fact someone might depend on this to track a living being is a concern in and of itself.
Click to expand...
Actually, the entirety of what Apple officially says is "Designed exclusively for tracking objects, and not people or pets." Which is technically true--it isn't designed to track people or pets. They actually do not, as far as I can tell (someone please correct me if I'm wrong), actively recommend against doing so, they just say it's not designed for that.

And it is accurate to say that it does a worse job tracking living things than it does not-living things--if the AirTag moves when you're trying to find it nearby, you'll get a warning that it's moving and can't be tracked precisely. The UWB search only works if the AirTag is not moving at all.

There may be some sort of liability concern, but if "not built or tested to be worn by living beings" were the reason they say it's not designed for use tracking people or pets, there would also be a warning telling you not to attach it to clothing, belts, or other items worn by humans. Which there is not. And in fact they actively recommend it for backpacks, wallets, and keys, all of which are either worn by living beings or kept inside clothing for extended periods of time, and mentions of "in a pocket" implies putting it in, say, a jacket pocket so you can find the jacket is a valid use.

The difference in all those cases is that you're not technically using it to track the person, you're using it to track the object the person is carrying.

I have read some stories of dogs eating them, which is dangerous, but I still don't see how that's any more likely than the dog eating it when it's dangling off a backpack or sitting on a table. And fortunately there's absolutely no way for a cat to consume something that big.
 
jaytv111 said:
I think it’s as simple as: if your pet runs away to where no humans are, your pet is untrackable, and Apple doesn’t want to be blamed for losing your pet.
Click to expand...
This if anything seems like the most plausible reason--if your dog gets lost the most likely place for it to be is somewhere there aren't any iPhones, so it's not the best tool in that case. It was interesting when the cat I have now was out travelinlg seeing the AirTag ping off various iPhones--I would only see the location update when near houses or other places people frequented.

Thing with those cellular pet trackers, though, is that aside from being expensive and having very short battery life, they're HUGE by small pet standards. They're fine on a large dog breed, but completely unreasonable on a cat--even an AirTag is at the limit of what I want to subject a cat to.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MasterControlProgram and KeithBN
jaytv111 said:
If someone says 50% more, it’s generally accepted as (x + .5x), or 1.5x. So they’re both saying the same thing, ie, old range times 1.5.
Click to expand...
LOL Maybe if you’re a butcher. In engineering terms, or even grammatically, they’re very different.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Galas
Makosuke said:
Actually, the entirety of what Apple officially says is "Designed exclusively for tracking objects, and not people or pets." Which is technically true--it isn't designed to track people or pets. They actually do not, as far as I can tell (someone please correct me if I'm wrong), actively recommend against doing so, they just say it's not designed for that.

And it is accurate to say that it does a worse job tracking living things than it does not-living things--if the AirTag moves when you're trying to find it nearby, you'll get a warning that it's moving and can't be tracked precisely. The UWB search only works if the AirTag is not moving at all.

There may be some sort of liability concern, but if "not built or tested to be worn by living beings" were the reason they say it's not designed for use tracking people or pets, there would also be a warning telling you not to attach it to clothing, belts, or other items worn by humans. Which there is not. And in fact they actively recommend it for backpacks, wallets, and keys, all of which are either worn by living beings or kept inside clothing for extended periods of time, and mentions of "in a pocket" implies putting it in, say, a jacket pocket so you can find the jacket is a valid use.

The difference in all those cases is that you're not technically using it to track the person, you're using it to track the object the person is carrying.

I have read some stories of dogs eating them, which is dangerous, but I still don't see how that's any more likely than the dog eating it when it's dangling off a backpack or sitting on a table. And fortunately there's absolutely no way for a cat to consume something that big.
Click to expand...
one thing that may bother them is the high frequency chime that will go off when the paired device is not in range and the airtag is moved.
 
cbsnbiker said:
I'm a bit confused. This article states:

  1. Requires iOS 26.2.1 - If you want to use an ‌AirTag‌ 2, you're going to have to update your device to iOS 26.2.1. The ‌AirTag‌ 2 requires the latest Apple software, which means it won't work with devices that aren't able to run iOS 26.

Yet a previous MacRumors article states:

The new AirTag that Apple unveiled today features a second-generation Ultra Wideband chip, enabling the Precision Finding feature to work up to 50% farther away from an item compared to the previous AirTag, according to Apple. However, you need a compatible iPhone model in order to take advantage of this improvement.


So, which is it? Do we need to own a device that runs at least 26.2.1 to use the AirTag 2? Or do we need such a device only to make use of the "improvement"?
Click to expand...
It’s just like every product going back to the iPod days, new product requires new software.
If you attempt to connect a new AirTag to an iPhone running iOS 18 or before, either absolutely nothing will happen or you will get a pop-up asking you to update your software.
Every product released after September 2025 either comes built in with or requires OS’s 26.
For example, the AirPods Pro 3 will not work properly with a device running iOS 18, you can connect them as standard Bluetooth headphones, but none of the specific AirPods features within the Apple ecosystem, including quick pairing, work properly.
With an Apple Watch, you can’t even pair a series 11 with an iPhone running 18, just nothing happens.
This is standard practice as I said, going all the way back to the iPod days, where every new iPod was accompanied by a new version of iTunes.
 
  • Like
Reactions: KeithBN
I bought 4 last month. I've waited for the next ten but I had to buy them because of travels.
 
Last edited:
I’ll update the tracker that’s currently inserted into a watertight case that’s bolted to my dogs collar, but don’t feel the need to replace the ones in my suitcases and travel bags. Not sure what I was expecting, but a little more than what we got would have been nice, like not locking compatibility to iOS 26.
 
Makosuke said:
I think the original AirTag is in relative terms the best product Apple has ever made--it really does "just work", does exactly what it says on the tin exactly as well as promised, and basically feels like magic when you need it.

Everything here is unsurprising but solid improvements, particularly the watch find. I personally would have traded holder-backward-compatibility for even a slightly smaller form factor, but I can accept for most uses the current size is sufficiently small and people would rather not have to get new keychains or whatnot.


I remain mildly curious why Apple continues to call this out, since there's nothing as far as I can tell that would pose any risk to a pet that's greater than if it weren't attached to their collar. People put tags and bells on their pet collars all the time, how is a similar-sized AirTag that emits a minuscule amount of radiation any different? [Edit: Looking at official documentation, they actually don't--as quoted above, they just say it's "designed for tracking objects". Not that it won't work for people and pets, not suggesting you don't use it that way, just that it's not designed for it, which is no doubt true--it works better when the AirTag isn't moving at all.]

Yes, a dog could swallow it, but I'd guess they're far less likely to eat something on their collar than they are something that isn't on their collar--I've never once heard of a dog eating its own tags.

Fear that the battery could hypothetically leak and cause skin burns? The new one is IP 67, so I'd think even if it DID somehow leak (which I've never seen a coin cell do), it wouldn't escape the case.

In any case, they're incredibly useful for keeping track of an outdoor cat. I recently adopted a stray (or maybe feral) cat (or maybe more accurately it adopted me), and prior to it deciding to move into my house one of the folks feeding it put a collar with an AirTag on; being able to figure out where that little critter was was incredibly valuable, not to mention interesting. That cat, it turned out, would do a circuit to places a half-mile away on a nighty basis.
Click to expand...
I think this simply implies that if your live in a rural or semi-rural area and your dog for example roams out of Bluetooth range (woods, field etc) you won’t find him. I thought about this use case for our dogs but discovered I really need GPS. Oh and yes, my dogs eat anything and everything. AirTag would just be an additional menu item.
 
I doubt that AirTags are something you'd need to upgrade, but replace if they eventually stopped working.

We have them in all our luggage, vehicles, and my wife and stepdaughter have them on their keys, and we still have a few spares.

But I doubt we'll need to buy and new ones just yet.
 
How does compatibility work? What do you get and not get vice versa? I’m assuming backward compatible. But are some featured accessible? Bluetooth version?

Should say AirTag 2. Went on the website. Doesn’t seem to be the case.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back