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AirTag barely functioning in iOS 26

I

ignatius345

macrumors G3
Original poster
Aug 20, 2015
9,000
16,293
Ever since updating to iOS 26, local finding of AirTags is not working at all for me. Here's what I see with a brand new AirTag, standing literally right next to the item. It's the same with the other AirTag I own. I can see them on the map, I can make them play alerts, but this feature is broken like 90% of the time. I had it work briefly after restarting the phone, but it keeps going back to this later:

IMG_4527.PNG
 
erihp said:
Rebooted phone?
Power cycled Airtag?
Does another device not on 26 work?
Click to expand...
Yea man. I tried moving to a different location. I was also, as I said, standing literally right next to the item, and see this with two separate AirTags, one of them brand new. Also restarted the phone, as I also said above.
 
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Before updating to IOS26 I had my wallet taken with an AirTag in. Nearly caught up to the thief by tracking it, before he/she dumped it. So I had to buy a new wallet which happened to have RFID card protection. A combination of IOS26 and RFID means the AirTag in the wallet is really useless!!
 
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GibberingRich said:
Before updating to IOS26 I had my wallet taken with an AirTag in. Nearly caught up to the thief by tracking it, before he/she dumped it. So I had to buy a new wallet which happened to have RFID card protection. A combination of IOS26 and RFID means the AirTag in the wallet is really useless!!
Click to expand...
Sounds like you bought the wrong wallet. RF blocking wallets block RF.

Anecdotal, but I have had a spare/test device running iOS 26 on the dev beta branch since the beginning and have not experienced any issues with AirTags.
 
I have the same Precision Finding issue. I reset my network connections and reset my privacy settings. I just did a restore of my phone and the problem persists. I have around ten AirTags (four brand new ones) and they're all the same. I don't have the issue on my iPhone Pro Max 11 - just my iPhone Pro Max 15. People that I've shared the tags with have no problem with precision finding
 
Same issue here. I have to restart my iPhone 15 Pro to get my air tags to do a precise location. After a short while this fails and I would need to restart to have it operable again. the air tags I share with my wife work just fine under ios 26. i called tech support and they ran me through everything without any luck. The call was escalated to a more senior person who told me that this is a known issue and will be addressed in a future update. Loading 26.1 now and hoping m yair tags are going to work like they did before.
 
webbga said:
Same issue here. I have to restart my iPhone 15 Pro to get my air tags to do a precise location. After a short while this fails and I would need to restart to have it operable again. the air tags I share with my wife work just fine under ios 26. i called tech support and they ran me through everything without any luck. The call was escalated to a more senior person who told me that this is a known issue and will be addressed in a future update. Loading 26.1 now and hoping m yair tags are going to work like they did before.
Click to expand...
I did a quick test with 16.1 and it seems to be working again. If it still works tomorrow, then I'll break out the champagne
 
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Bill Av said:
I did a quick test with 16.1 and it seems to be working again. If it still works tomorrow, then I'll break out the champagne
Click to expand...
I was hopeful as well, but this morning my air tags are not working. They did right after the update, but that update also restarted the phone which is the same situation as before. This is annoying because my wife is running ios 26 and the air tags we share work fine for her. She has an iPhone 13

Which Phone are you using?
 
This issue is back this morning on my iPhone 15 Pro Max. My iPhone 11 Pro Max is still problem-free.
 
Bill Av said:
This issue is back this morning on my iPhone 15 Pro Max. My iPhone 11 Pro Max is still problem-free.
Click to expand...
@ignatius345 this appears to be an issue with the 15 lineup. I've seen similar complaints on a few different sites, including the Apple Community page and they are always limited to the 15s. Like @webbga and @Bill Av, 26.1 appeared to solve the issue briefly only for it to revert back to its old ways a few hours later. Very frustrating.
 
Bill Av said:
This issue is back this morning on my iPhone 15 Pro Max. My iPhone 11 Pro Max is still problem-free.
Click to expand...
Seems like this is an I phone 15 issue. Everything worked well before ios 26, so something about the iPhone 15 and the ios 26 combo disables the air tag, yet reenables it after restarting. Seems like this would be clue enough for Apple to do something. Hope there is a resolution soon
 
webbga said:
Seems like this is an I phone 15 issue. Everything worked well before ios 26, so something about the iPhone 15 and the ios 26 combo disables the air tag, yet reenables it after restarting. Seems like this would be clue enough for Apple to do something. Hope there is a resolution soon
Click to expand...
I hope so, but the lack of complaints about this is a concern for me. If this affected every AirTag user, the problem would have been fixed by now. I’ve had issues that were never fixed by Apple, presumably because the amount of affected users was low.
 
Bill Av said:
I hope so, but the lack of complaints about this is a concern for me. If this affected every AirTag user, the problem would have been fixed by now. I’ve had issues that were never fixed by Apple, presumably because the amount of affected users was low.
Click to expand...
Have you submitted a Feedback Assistant submission on the issue? Mine is still listed as open without any similar reports. Still seems isolated to 15s. I’ve yet to see a non 15 user report this issue.
 
I submitted the issue a week or two ago. I haven't received anything back from Apple. Not even an email saying that I submitted anything.
 
Bill Av said:
I submitted the issue a week or two ago. I haven't received anything back from Apple. Not even an email saying that I submitted anything.
Click to expand...
I saw a YouTube video the other day that was centered on all the new features in the ios 26.2 beta and all the fixes. One of the responses in the Comments section said the update failed to fix the air tag problem for iPhone 15 users. This is still the beta so I am hoping the actual release will have a fix. I am growing less hopeful with each update.
 
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webbga said:
I saw a YouTube video the other day that was centered on all the new features in the ios 26.2 beta and all the fixes. One of the responses in the Comments section said the update failed to fix the air tag problem for iPhone 15 users. This is still the beta so I am hoping the actual release will have a fix. I am growing less hopeful with each update.
Click to expand...
I’m about 4 hours in since I installed 26.2 and precision finding is still working. We’ll see what happens in the morning…

Edit: Hit the 5ish hour mark and it stopped working…
 
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TFrank2 said:
I’m about 4 hours in since I installed 26.2 and precision finding is still working. We’ll see what happens in the morning…

Edit: Hit the 5ish hour mark and it stopped working…
Click to expand...
Same for me. It worked after the update, but stopped by this morning.

Edit: I've been testing, and it's working a lot better than it did before. The latest attempts I've made over the past two days have all been successful
 
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