AirTag Competitor Tile Getting Acquired by Location Sharing App Life360

[mike2q]

Anyone know if Life360 is good with your location data or are they selling it?

If they sell it this is not a good thing for Tile despite the short term upside.

edit: Did some digging, Life360 data harvests and sells your data (including location data). Mid to long term this will mean ashes for Tile. People are getting more resistant to be data raped, not less. Too bad, I had hoped they'd do okay.

Just so we're not under any false delusions here you should be know that Apple monetizes your data as well. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported that as they transition from a hardware company to a service company terms of service will be updated to allow more permissive use of the trove of data they already have. I know people here seem to think Google sells peoples data but unlike Facebook Google does not and never has sold anyone's data. What google sells is ad space and they use the data they have to target those ads toward candidates who are most likely to be interested in the ad. Your data never actually leaves Google though and that's an important distinction because I can easily see Apple eventually using the same business model. Of course they would reiterate their stance on privacy and assure its users that their data is safe and maybe even claim the data is somehow anonymised but that would make every argument against Google and Android null and void. Their ad revenue is still very small compared to the rest of the company but my bet is their recent privacy stance could help them pivot themselves as the sole gatekeepers of iPhone users data. If you want to buy adds for iPhone users then you have to pay Apple. Lets see how this post ages in 5 to 7 years from now.

 

[Abazigal]

Just so we're not under any false delusions here you should be know that Apple monetizes your data as well. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported that as they transition from a hardware company to a service company terms of service will be updated to allow more permissive use of the trove of data they already have. I know people here seem to think Google sells peoples data but unlike Facebook Google does not and never has sold anyone's data. What google sells is ad space and they use the data they have to target those ads toward candidates who are most likely to be interested in the ad. Your data never actually leaves Google though and that's an important distinction because I can easily see Apple eventually using the same business model. Of course they would reiterate their stance on privacy and assure its users that their data is safe and maybe even claim the data is somehow anonymised but that would make every argument against Google and Android null and void. Their ad revenue is still very small compared to the rest of the company but my bet is their recent privacy stance could help them pivot themselves as the sole gatekeepers of iPhone users data. If you want to buy adds for iPhone users then you have to pay Apple. Lets see how this post ages in 5 to 7 years from now.

I have nothing against companies serving ads. The question is whether users know whether they are being tracked, and if they are giving an option to opt out of tracking.

This nuance seems to be lost on users. Facebook and Google most definitely go out of their way to suck all the data they can from their users while staying silent on the matter. Apple makes it clear up front, and gives users the ability to opt out of tracking. The rest don’t, which is why Apple has to be the one to step in.

Apple certain has the right to use its own platform to deliver ads to its users. I see no hypocrisy here.

 

[parkds]

Life360 also acquired Jiobit this September. Jiobit is thicker and slightly larger than a Tile and provides GPS data mainly for tracking kids and pets as well as 911 access. I know a lot of parents that use it for bus riding kids, especially in NYC where there can easily be 30min swings on when your kid reaches your stop. Seems like Life360 is building a profile of tracking devices.

 

[smithbrad]

The scanning feature works on any latest android phones. Anyone with an android will be able to scan the Airtag to reveal your contact info. Cheers to that. The Airtag will scratch and you will need to accept it.

 

[twintin]

Apple made a fine product but I’m not ignorant enough to realize it needs improvements and tile is still a solid option.

Tile s not a solid option. One of the most important aspects when it comes to tracking devices of this kind is the size of the network and in that regard Tile is not even close to AirTag.

 

[nieks]

The problem with Tile (without the subscription) is that the userbase is way smaller than Apple's userbase. Tile will always be dependant of their app on everybody's phones, which makes it (unfortunately) less usable than Apple's solution.

I am an avid Tile user, and coming holidays I am transferring to the Airtags.
1. The new Tile products are ugly.
2. The acquisition by Life360 does not bode well for user data and Tile future.
3. Airtags are an easy addition when I'm already using an iPhone, Watch, Mac, iPad.
4. Airtags are, with (unfortunately expensive) accesories a more stylish option.

 

[steggerwoof]

As a family we've used Life360 for years now.
Myself, my wife, our 2 teenage boys (14 and 16) and my mother and father-in-law all use it and are part of our family 'circle' (hence the name 360).

I don't see the down side, none of us have any problem with the others knowing where we are, pre-COVID I used to work away 3 days a week so my wife could see when I'd left the office and was safely on my way home.
We get to see when our youngest is at school and when the eldest leaves college, it was really useful when our youngest had his first day in high school, despite us wanting to collect him he insisted he wanted to get the bus home, but he got on the wrong bus and rang us crying saying he wasn't sure where he was, we opened Life360 and knew he was only 2 miles away and we drove to collect him.

We can also see where my in-laws are and that they're okay, we get an alert when they leave their home which they are more than happy for us to receive.

All in all we've found it a very valuable tool to have and use it on a daily basis.

 

[JippaLippa]

"It is used bt parents to track teenagers"...

Thank god smartphones weren't a thing yet when I was a teen...

 

[svish]

Hopefully privacy will not reduce and Tile will remain as we know it now.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Tile will continue to be operated as a standalone brand under Tile CEO CJ Prober,

'And we won't do any management changes for the foreseeable future'. (Which isn't usually that long, oddly)

I do as do about ten million mothers (my wife) who want to keep track of their kids. Pretty obvious very few of you have kids. In fact last night my son was driving a friend home. Opened up life 360 and saw our son was driving a little too fast and texted him to slow down which he did.

Does Life360 include an ankle monitor? I jest. I was abnormal apparently. As a new driver, I had a respect for the laws of physics, and though I 'drove fast', I never had an incident until an 80 year-old woman tried to turn in front of me, and I swerved and hit a mailbox. I did hit patch ice and end up in a ditch, so that gave me a razor sharp respect for winter driving too. But so many kids die testing those laws of physics, and I don't know if anything would be able to stop that happening. But monitoring your children like they are on house arrest is rather draconian, to me.

Yeah, I haven't had kids, but if you have to be able to monitor them 24x7, why let them out of the house. I'm in favor of delaying driver training and getting a license, which angers many, but if your kids can't handle it at 17, make it 20. It might save lives. And parents that start training early would seem to have a leg up on having kids that survive their first 5 years of driving.

Maybe there should be a cheap car for parents to buy for their kids. Something like the Datsun I had for years. It *could* do 65, but it had to be down hill, with a tail wind. I heard of a classmate of my brother's whose brain dead parents bought her a Pontiac GTO muscle car. They might as well have bought her an AK47 and armor piercing bullets, or a bazooka. Talk about idiotic parental behavior. But, like I said, I was abnormal as a kid. I had a healthy respect for pain, and tried to avoid it as much as I could. I saw too many classmates and others at the school end up maimed, or dead, because of stupidity.

But stupid kids... One mother, in the town I went to college, was watching the news on a TV in their break room as she was getting ready to start her day after arriving, and there was a 'breaking news' flash about a car crash. The idiot local station showed the back of the car, sticking out of a grove of trees, and didn't block out the license plate. It was her car. Her son had dropped her off, and was going to school. The car was filled with other kids, and flew off a railroad crossing, bounced down the road, and missed a corner. All in the car died. 8 kids. Her son was at the wheel, showing off. That railroad crossing was well known. Stupid human tricks. Spoiled kid. Wanting to show off. But monitoring her offspring wasn't likely to have stopped that from happening. What a horrific incident. Realizing your kid is an idiot and shouldn't have a license is saving so much time and agony. Give them a car that couldn't do 60 on a dare. *shrug*

 

[LeadingHeat]

Hmmm. 33 million people helping find my phone or 1 billion? I think I’d rather take the latter. That being said, hopefully this makes Tile shut up now about this anticompetitive issue with AirTags they’re claiming.

 

[Teenage_Explosion_Man]

I won't pretend to understand the complexities of this type of tracking, but 33M is still small compared to the installed user base of iPhones.

If MOAR = betterer then it's still not much.

If Alphabet/Google/Android/whatever were leveraging the installed Android user base, now that would be something.

 

[beerseagulls]

Tracking your teen…

Teen 1: Mom I'm going to the library.
Mom: Ok hun. Have fun!
Teen 1 on the phone with Teen 2: Pick me up at the library; I've got to put my tile on the window seal. I hope you're ready for the time of your life.
Teen 2: You know I am!
Teen 1: I want to you to wreak it like you're never going to get the chance again.
Teen 2: Oh, I'll wreak it alright

At home...
Teen 1: I'm home.
Mom: How was the library?
Teen 1: Sooo fun. I love books!
Mom: I know you do my sweet little angel.

Mom: I'm kind of sad that our kids isn't as smart or paranoid as other kids at the school

Dad: Why?

Mom: well... our kid doesn't seem to realize that we are tracking the phone 24/7/365... and also the smart tracking shoes we bought for him last month...

Dad: you mean the ones you make me wear to work every single day?

Mom: yes those... also, did you pay his friend the monthly $20 yet? he's been a good mole and always texts us their locations whenever our son is up to no good.

 

[steve62388]

Just so we're not under any false delusions here you should be know that Apple monetizes your data as well. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported that as they transition from a hardware company to a service company terms of service will be updated to allow more permissive use of the trove of data they already have. I know people here seem to think Google sells peoples data but unlike Facebook Google does not and never has sold anyone's data. What google sells is ad space and they use the data they have to target those ads toward candidates who are most likely to be interested in the ad. Your data never actually leaves Google though and that's an important distinction because I can easily see Apple eventually using the same business model. Of course they would reiterate their stance on privacy and assure its users that their data is safe and maybe even claim the data is somehow anonymised but that would make every argument against Google and Android null and void. Their ad revenue is still very small compared to the rest of the company but my bet is their recent privacy stance could help them pivot themselves as the sole gatekeepers of iPhone users data. If you want to buy adds for iPhone users then you have to pay Apple. Lets see how this post ages in 5 to 7 years from now.

Maybe. But they tried the advertising game before and crashed and burned pretty hard. Once bitten twice shy.

I suspect they will try to remain a hardware and services company.

iAd - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[tooloud10]

Life360: for when you're such a helicopter parent that the free live location/tracking feature built in to iOS isn't good enough so you're willing to pay a monthly fee for basically the same thing to a company with creepy TOS.

 

[gaximus]

Tile will continue to be operated as a standalone brand under Tile CEO CJ Prober, but Tile says that when the acquisition is completed, it will be able to leverage Life360's 33 million smartphone users to grow Tile's Finding network by 10x. Tile's network is the equivalent of Apple's Find My network, leveraging nearby devices to locate lost items.

Not equivalent, Tile only works if the people around your lost tile, also have tile app installed. Apple works if anyone with an iPhone/Mac/iPad is near your lost device.

 

[UnusedLoginID]

To all of you using Tile and Life360… how’s your phone battery life? These two apps always run in the background and suck the life of any phone.
Why use Tile with a very limited network of phones with the same app installed (only way it works!) and why use Life360 which is piggybacking on basic iOS features available for free?
You’re being scammed!

 

[acctman]

Life360? I wonder why they picked that name. Is it a circle and I will end where I started or is it supposed to be a year but I get a week off?

Back when every new tech company or tech had 360 in the name.

 

[SigurTom]

As a family we've used Life360 for years now.
Myself, my wife, our 2 teenage boys (14 and 16) and my mother and father-in-law all use it and are part of our family 'circle' (hence the name 360).

I don't see the down side, none of us have any problem with the others knowing where we are, pre-COVID I used to work away 3 days a week so my wife could see when I'd left the office and was safely on my way home.
We get to see when our youngest is at school and when the eldest leaves college, it was really useful when our youngest had his first day in high school, despite us wanting to collect him he insisted he wanted to get the bus home, but he got on the wrong bus and rang us crying saying he wasn't sure where he was, we opened Life360 and knew he was only 2 miles away and we drove to collect him.

We can also see where my in-laws are and that they're okay, we get an alert when they leave their home which they are more than happy for us to receive.

All in all we've found it a very valuable tool to have and use it on a daily basis.

How is that better, or even different, than Find My?

 

[taize]

Life360 sounds kinda skeezy...

'Tracking family members'? And people are finding AirTags behind license plates. Wow...

Sleezy when done as a form of control or manipulation - I agree.

When done transparently as part of a caring relationship it a great way to help kids feel safer.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Sleezy when done as a form of control or manipulation - I agree.

When done transparently as part of a caring relationship it a great way to help kids feel safer.

Safer? From what? It violates their privacy and teaches them that they can't be trusted, and that it's okay for *someone* to be tracking them. I mean, sure, my brother needed a leash as a kid in the grocery, but to warp his brain with the idea that *someone* has to track him 'for his safety', os just too damned Orwellian for me... It's like the kooks that say that beating your kids is 'for their own good'. No, that too is a violation of their person-hood, their psyche, their humanity.

You either can, or you can't trust them, and if 24x7 tracking and monitoring makes you 'feel safer', what the heck does it do to the poor kid? I joked about putting manacles on the wall of the basement if my kid proved to be untrustworthy, and I joked about it. (Again, I never had kids) But would I chip my kid? Would I want to put something on or in them that could be used by others to track them as well? I find the whole idea so morally, ethically, and everythingly repugnant! HOLY CRAP!!! That's putting 'helicopter parenting' on gigantic steroids...

 

[gene731]

My family does and I know many other families the use it also. It is good to keep track of where the kids are.

My wife and I get notifications of when we leave work that way who ever is home can start evening meal.

My daughter who is an adult with special needs loves using it to spy on where mom and dad are.

I get text saying "daddy at work" and similar. I am typically a don't track me my data is mine turn all location off type of guy.

But, then when I get text like that it makes me smile because I know she is checking on me because she loves me and wants to know that I am safe.

Only on MacRumors can you make a statement about how a special needs kid likes to watch where her daddy is, regardless of platform used, and that gives you a great deal of pride because she loves you and then someone gives a downvote. My time is limited as I have terminal cancer but you know if it bothers someone so bad because you love your daughter and vice versa, why downvote the dude? Pretend you didn’t read it and move in with your life.

 

[gene731]

I don't think I am being anti-tile, but my experience with their products have been fairly negative. Admittedly, this was many years ago, but their product didn't really work for me. The tile tracker drained my iPhone's battery life pretty significantly (more than 10% a day), didn't always reconnect when back within bluetooth range, the network in my country was practically non-existent, and when the (then non-replaceable) battery finally died after 9 months, I didn't bother replacing it.

Apple was able to solve most of these issues in a uniquely Apple way, by leveraging on their billion-strong iPhone install base, and their control over hardware and software. It doesn't matter that Tile was first to a novel idea if they are unable to leverage to this first-mover advantage to create a better user experience for their user base, and I think there came a point where they realised they could only do so much selling bluetooth trackers, and this is where Apple stepped in.

Apple has a genuinely superior offering in my book.

I don’t think people are anti-Tile. They just get tired of these little bratty ceos crying about Apple and they are monopolistic anti competitive yada yada yada nonsense. I had never played fortnite and most definitely not because of the whiney @$$ sweeney or will I listen to spotify crying about big bad Apple but which company has more subscribers and one clue, it isn’t Appleg

Just so we're not under any false delusions here you should be know that Apple monetizes your data as well. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported that as they transition from a hardware company to a service company terms of service will be updated to allow more permissive use of the trove of data they already have. I know people here seem to think Google sells peoples data but unlike Facebook Google does not and never has sold anyone's data. What google sells is ad space and they use the data they have to target those ads toward candidates who are most likely to be interested in the ad. Your data never actually leaves Google though and that's an important distinction because I can easily see Apple eventually using the same business model. Of course they would reiterate their stance on privacy and assure its users that their data is safe and maybe even claim the data is somehow anonymised but that would make every argument against Google and Android null and void. Their ad revenue is still very small compared to the rest of the company but my bet is their recent privacy stance could help them pivot themselves as the sole gatekeepers of iPhone users data. If you want to buy adds for iPhone users then you have to pay Apple. Lets see how this post ages in 5 to 7 years from now.

well gee Apple is a for profit company. I’m sure 99.5% of people realize that.

 

[H.E. Pennypacker]

Find My predates Tile. It’s not a stretch to think Apple had ideas of extending it further.

People are also anti-Tile because of their incessant whining. They’re like a spoiled child with entitlement issues.

Kind of like apple was with the epic lawsuit?

 

[H.E. Pennypacker]

Hmmm. 33 million people helping find my phone or 1 billion? I think I’d rather take the latter. That being said, hopefully this makes Tile shut up now about this anticompetitive issue with AirTags they’re claiming.

If you think you’re getting you phone back if you’ve lost it that’s a stretch. That’s going straight to the black market. If you’re lucky 3 times out of 10 you get your phone back.