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AirTag Owners Bemoan Inability to Let Others Track Their Items Via Family Sharing
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Thank you for your comment.
I'm interested in why you don't believe that it is a contradiction that it is allowed for the Phone, but not on the airtags. This is a genuine question that has really been the main reason for my involvement in this discussion. I'm sure that there could be something I'm missing about this, but I am really struggling to see why it is OK on the phone if not on the airtags. As you say, we may not agree, but I'm genuinely interested to understand the thinking.
As I said, it sharing airtags isn't something that we would use beyond things like me making my wife tag beep if she couldn't find her bag, rather than her needing to pick her phone up (something that I currently do when she can't find her phone). For me it is just a convenience. I'm just in the discussion because I find the arguments and different perspectives interesting.
I think it's pretty clear that for the past decade Apples target market are 10 to 20 year olds. This age group wouldn't want their parents to track anything they own, or where they are. It's pretty clear for the brightly colored devices, to the toned down features, they are appealing to the demographic that takes selfies and posts on social media.
The days of Apple creating products for artist, photographers, people in the medical field, web designers etc are pretty much over. So for the new target market the Airtag fits the bill.
The days of Apple creating products for artist, photographers, people in the medical field, web designers etc are pretty much over. So for the new target market the Airtag fits the bill.
I don’t know why Apple did it this way but having followed Apple for many years I can take a few educated guesses. I think the overriding objective is probably to maintain the iPhone as the centre of everything. They don’t want a $30 AirTag to have the same functionality as the iPhone. I think they want you to take your iPhone everywhere so it becomes indispensable. The fact that you have to pick up your iPhone to find your wife is probably what Apple wants because that reinforces how important the iPhone is to your daily life. Airtags are an accessory to enhance your iPhone and make a few dollars for Apple but they don’t want them to replace your iPhone. You can’t stick your iPhone to your keys so they needed an alternative option that kept users within the Apple ecosystem rather than going to Tile.
Apple have stated publicly the AirTag is an item tracker not a person tracker. That could simply be marketing speak to encourage you to buy loads of them and stick them to various objects. It could also be a way of fending off concerns about using them for tracking people. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many people raised this concern straight away. Maybe Apple were worried police and lawyers and government would have the same concerns. This way they can start selling the product and change it later once those concerns have abated.
I agree that it would be useful to have the family sharing in the scenarios that you quoted re taking the dog for a walk. It could be as simple as Apple felt the concerns would outweigh the benefits. Of course this could all change. Apple has a habit of adding much requested features in later products as an incentive to upgrade. So I would not be surprised if the family sharing facility was added to a later version of the product. I remember my first iPad had no print function so I had to hold the screen over the photocopier to print a page. Obviously they fixed that but it took them a while.
I’m sorry we got off on the wrong note. I enjoy this forum but can get carried away sometimes. Apologies for that.
Yes, it's the internet. We all get carried away.
Ironically, it looks like we actually agree almost completely (like is often the case with internet arguments when things calm down). There isn't anything in your post that I would particularly disagree with.
This is actually not how it seems to work.
The feature people would like to use, from my understanding of the article and to stay with your example, would mean that the kids activate an Airtag with their iPhone, and then share that Airtags location with their parents.
Right now, the parents can already give their kids an Airtag and track them. The kids would have to have an iPhone that notifies them about being tracked, which they could approve if it is from within a family sharing account.
WTH wants to track their wife? As long as she’s away from me I’m happy. 😂
didn't apple release a statement saying that AirTags weren't made to track children and pets? Everyone keeps on talking about tracking pets with them...
Honestly as a middle ground between privacy and utility I'd be fine with only one person being able to view the "last location" if I could turn on the ability to do the bluetooth/UWB device tracking for more accounts. For things I'd attach it to, being "really" lost as in "i don't know where in the city it is" isn't the most interesting case, and it would be fine having to talk to my wife to get that info. Being able to find which couch cushion the keys were hiding under in the living room on the other hand is important.
To be fair, most of those posts seem to be from people saying why that is a bad idea, or shouldn't be allowed.
The actual requirement that the article is talking about is peoples wish to be able to track their families lost items, not the people themselves.
Nice straw man. I never claimed to have proof.
You really should understand what inductive reasoning is about. It's employed across a wide range of scientific disciplines. It's a pretty simple concept. Start with Wiki, and go a bit further if you're really curious. I have a feeling you're not.
Similarly our (the United States and likely the English) system of justice employs a similar construct in criminal trials with respect to evidence. It's called circumstantial evidence, as opposed to direct evidence. You might want to understand what that's all about as well.
Still waiting for your contribution to the subject at hand; ie the notion of sharing with respect to AirTags. Certainly you must have an opinion, hopefully backed up with something.
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Yes, it's the internet. We all get carried away.
Ironically, it looks like we actually agree almost completely (like is often the case with internet arguments when things calm down). There isn't anything in your post that I would particularly disagree with.
it was a pleasure being witness to this discussion; especially its resolution.
I especially agree with Aero on: “They don’t want a $30 AirTag to have the same functionality as the iPhone.” As if they weren’t trying to force upgrades, the AW6 would also be able to use find my to find (not only be found) and older iPhones would have if not the aero, at least a hot warm cold feedback based on time of flight. (Apple kinda bombed on Accessibility here. If you are hearing impaired, the AT’s peep tone is useless. Apple could also have used the phones microphone to pickup louder softer to guide h/w/c display feedback.)
“each of our dogs”
Didn’t Apple say it’s not meant to track animals, kids, or people in general?
Didn’t Apple say it’s not meant to track animals, kids, or people in general?
Thankfully, no one has ever used a product in a manner the manufacturer had not intended.
Gotta call BS on the metrosexual dig. Except for Tim most of the senior leadership are middle aged family people. (And truth be known, Tim’s probably got a significant other as well. And even if he didn’t he didn’t grow up in a test tube he was and is part of a family. And as a good businessman he’s balancing customer features on a given device vs the pull to selling iPhones by keeping it exclusive to that device.)
Yes but if the husband has consent it should be allowed.
Not asking Apple to track anyone - just give me the opportunity to track an item with someone I share the item with.
I think it is more that I expected that in the same way that I can track my wife/son's phone, ipad, computer and watch - why can't I track their AirTags or allow them to track mine?
Its really easy and Im shocked, I tell you, that this learned community cannot figure this out.
Apple's new AirTag item trackers have been making their way into the hands of customers since Friday, and while the company has tried to describe the ways that they can be used to find lost items, many users are still surprised and disappointed to learn that the location of an AirTag can't be shared with other family members.
On the face of it, sharing the location of an AirTag via Apple's Family Sharing feature should be a no-brainer, since individual members in a Family Sharing group can use the Find My app to see the location of other family members' Apple devices, including iPhones, iPads, Macs, AirPods, and Apple Watches.
Given those Family Sharing privileges, many users have understandably assumed that an AirTag attached to an item that's regularly used by more than one person in the household (a set of keys, for example) could be tracked by multiple family members within Find My.
Unfortunately, however, AirTags don't work like other Apple devices in Find My, and several users have taken to the MacRumors forums, Reddit, and Apple's community support site to share their displeasure after learning about the Family Sharing limitation:
As Apple has explained, the only AirTag privilege afforded to people in an iCloud Family Sharing group is that they can silence the "AirTag Detected" safety alert that appears when an AirTag is traveling with them that is registered to someone else. (Likewise, the owner of the AirTag can disable the safety alerts to prevent someone else's iPhone from detecting it as unwanted tracking.)
But that's as far as the Family Sharing functionality goes. AirTags are only meant to be owned by one person, and it's not currently possible to share an AirTag's location with another family member using another Apple ID. It's likely that Apple has omitted this feature due to privacy concerns, so whether or not it intends to introduce it in the future via some other form of implementation remains to be seen.
Article Link: AirTag Owners Bemoan Inability to Let Others Track Their Items Via Family Sharing
Just have them sign in with your Apple ID. Or, just set up another Apple ID for the Tags.
Yes. It should be allowed to family share. Happy?
everything else you spouted it bs.