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Privacy was always going to mean that these don't work well with stolen items. I hadn't been able to think of an effective way round it, but had a vague hope that Apple may think of something. It appears not.

Basically, these are for tracking lost items (or keeping an eye on things that are away from you but not with another person, such as luggage on an aircraft). They won't work well for stolen items.
 
I'm excited about these but then I pause... what will I really use them for? Ok, keys I get that but they will require a pretty significant addition to the keyring. What else? Let's get off the hype train from Apple and shout out some examples of how to use them... I think I'll get a 4 pack and see how they fit in my life, but I'm not sure just how useful they will be to me.
I'm using it for my wallet too. The 2 things I always lose are my keys and wallet. If I had this product years ago I'd have been early for so many things.
 
I'm really excited to try these out - even though I've never lost my keys or wallet or anything else like that 🤣
 
If you are near a tag that isn’t yours and the owner is not around it will alert you. Did you even read all the details about it?
Did YOU even read any details??
If I lose my luggage in an airport and there are hundreds of iphones nearby what do you think will happen? Notify all of them? Don't think so.
 
I usually never lose "things" *cough*...

But I am kind of impressed what we already do discuss here and o one has one of these iTags in his hands.

Put one in your car, if you forget, where you parked is a brilliant example, if you are kind of clumsy. Ok, someone with an iDevice has to pick up the signal, but that is it in fact.

If you lose your wallet with an AirTag and the thief throws the AirTag away, you are lost, yes. But it is not primarily about "FindMy stolen", but "FindMy".

The idea and the "network" you get is kind of brilliant. I guess, I will get at least one, just out of curiousity...
 
That's my problem as well. I would like to use them to protect something like my bicycle. A thief will be notified there is a tracker inside and will just find it and discard it. Wtf??
That was the first (and probably only) use I wanted it for, as well.

I suppose we could put it in the downtube or something so that at least the theif will be cycling off and either abandon the bike or have to dismantle it to get at the tracker, which I assume means it's still being tracked until they do that.
 
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I'm excited about these but then I pause... what will I really use them for? Ok, keys I get that but they will require a pretty significant addition to the keyring. What else? Let's get off the hype train from Apple and shout out some examples of how to use them... I think I'll get a 4 pack and see how they fit in my life, but I'm not sure just how useful they will be to me.
The main reason I will get some of these is to put in luggage when travelling.

There have been numerous occasions where these would be useful at airports. On one occasion we were waiting for our bags for a while, whilst it was actually in a different airport. Airbags would have alerted us to this so we could have reported it earlier and set off home.

More often, there have been bags which are in the correct airport, but are delayed in arriving at baggage claim. In those cases we could have confirmed this, and removed the concern that there was a problem. It way also mean that rather than having to stand by the claim our phones may notify us when they pass close by.

I'd have got a tile for this a few years ago, but their network didn't seem good enough to ensure that someones device would pick it up.
 
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Did YOU even read any details??
If I lose my luggage in an airport and there are hundreds of iphones nearby what do you think will happen? Notify all of them? Don't think so.
No it won’t it will tell you where it is in the airport as people will move to and away from it pretty regularly as the pass by. If someone grabs it and walks away with it it will alert them. So ye, it’s you that doesn’t understand my friend so chill out and sit back down..
 
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I'd like to put it on my motorcycle and let family track me just incase I crash and then they'll know where.
Can you share the location of items with others?

And this really only works if you are using your own phone to report the tag, and it has connectivity (in which case just track your phone). Otherwise, you are relying on anonymous passersby to report it, which seems to defeat the purpose because you'd hope they would just assist instead. Right?

These aren't GPS-enabled trackers with satellite connectivity.
 
It would keep alerting their teacher if they have an iPhone and start making sounds if it’s away from your iPhone! I’m sure this will become an issue for schools. Great idea, bad implementation from Apple unfortunately.

You can ignore them in the notification app if you know that they are from someone you trust or know.
 
Put one in your car, if you forget, where you parked is a brilliant example, if you are kind of clumsy. Ok, someone with an iDevice has to pick up the signal, but that is it in fact.
Your phone has very likely recorded your cars position anyway, so you can do this without airtags. I use that quite often in big car parks (Theme Parks etc).
 
Can you share the location of items with others?

And this really only works if you are using your own phone to report the tag, and it has connectivity. Otherwise, you are relying on anonymous passersby to report it, which seems to defeat the purpose because you'd hope they would just assist instead. Right?

These aren't GPS-enabled trackers with satellite connectivity.

You can share the location of your iPhone with your family so why not the location of these? And you don't need anybody to report anything, the persons iPhone will automatically report the location to your family if you set it to lost.
 
You can share the location of your iPhone with your family so why not the location of these? And you don't need anybody to report anything, the persons iPhone will automatically report the location to your family if you set it to lost.
By 'report' I mean using the Find My network to relay the location information automatically. Just saying, this isn't a very good use-case example.

And I can share my location with others, but not a specific device. It only tracks one device as "my location". I could be wrong but I'm not sure there is a feature to share a specific device's location.
 
Did YOU even read any details??
If I lose my luggage in an airport and there are hundreds of iphones nearby what do you think will happen? Notify all of them? Don't think so.
The details say that you will be alerted when "your iPhone will notice it's travelling with you".

So, if you sit down near one then, going by that wording, it won't notify you. It needs you to walk away and it follow you.

That seems a logical way of doing it.
 
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Can I put this on, like a motorcycle and track it if it's stolen?
No. This is not an anti theft device. It will alert the thief of its presence (if they have an iPhone) to protect their privacy. In my opinion this product is going to be the most misunderstood product of all times and will end up annoying other iPhone users as users will frequently try and “track” others or their luggage in a busy airport. Sigh.
 
By 'report' I mean using the Find My network to relay the location information automatically. Just saying, this isn't a very good use-case example.

And I can share my location with others, but not a specific device. It only tracks one device as "my location". I could be wrong but I'm not sure there is a feature to share a specific device's location.

Yes it is by device. I can see my wife's Macbook and iPhone location.
 
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