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AirTags no longer being useful for stolen item location - Thoughts?

Piggie said:
So, basically we shall be at a point where you will need to purchase a 3rd party tracker option to protect/find items you wish to locate if they are stolen.
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I think it totally sucks. Anyone who is told what this does is going to think of protecting items from theft. It is like selling someone a car and then saying "We never said it could make left turns." when they are actively preventing it from doing so.

They are effectively aiding one crime to resist a much less common one. I'm sure that there are 20% of the people that think that B is more important than A, but to just ignore A and pretend there is nothing they can do is irresponsible.
 
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8px said:
Stolen is aggressively lost.
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You guys keep saying this in forums, but in Apple's marketing that is buried in the fine print. Meanwhile no once can look at this and NOT think that it would be great for anti-theft.

Apple claims that this is about anti-stalking, but stalking happens anyway with other products. Also, there are easy ways to prevent stalking without aiding thieves. Apple had an opportunity to make the world a better place, and they blew it.
 
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Algr said:
You guys keep saying this in forums, but in Apple's marketing that is buried in the fine print. Meanwhile no once can look at this and NOT think that it would be great for anti-theft.

Apple claims that this is about anti-stalking, but stalking happens anyway with other products. Also, there are easy ways to prevent stalking without aiding thieves. Apple had an opportunity to make the world a better place, and they blew it.
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It’s hardly buried it’s right there on the website. After all the bits talking about how it’s useful for finding lost items.
Everyone keeps getting faux outraged for a scenario they have invented.
 

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Does anyone use it for a bicycle? I am thinking to hide an airtag somewhere ”inside” bicycle, so have anyone already done it?
 
When the airtag's came out there were a number of irresponsible tech journalists who wrote articles about the airtag's and subsequently made the suggestion of them being used to track stolen items or to track people. This then put into the minds of people that airtag's could be used for theft prevention. Apple has a disclaimer in the T&C's that airtag's are not to be used for the purpose of theft prevention.

Apple has always and still to this day said that airtag's are not to be used for anti-theft but unfortunately there are still tech websites and forums, social media and even in this forum where people have made articles/posts about how good airtags are for anti-theft.

There are a number of threads in this forum from members advocating the wonders of airtag's as an anti-theft device because they recovered their stolen property due to an airtag. How do you think people are going to respond when they see posts from airtag owners saying they used their airtag to recover stolen property even though the airtag is being used irresponsibly.

None of these articles/forum posts/social media posts ever come with a disclaimer saying that airtag's should not be used as an anti-theft device. So when something goes wrong a stolen item is not recovered, who do they blame? not themselves but Apple.
 
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danny842003 said:
It’s hardly buried it’s right there on the website. After all the bits talking about how it’s useful for finding lost items.
Everyone keeps getting faux outraged for a scenario they have invented.
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That "warning" doesn't say a word about theft. It is strategically written to avoid telling you what won't work. You'd have to already know in order to find that meaning in the text.
 
mike_designer said:
Does anyone use it for a bicycle? I am thinking to hide an airtag somewhere ”inside” bicycle, so have anyone already done it?
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i dropped one into my downstem thinking it was a brilliant idea. steel bike, no signal can make it out of the downtube.

there is a bell housing that will hide an airtag in its base.
 
fischersd said:
Pretty sure as part of Apple's license agreement for using their FindMy network, the vendors need to comply with their usage scenarios - so, anything that is easily pocketable such as the AirTag's should behave exactly the same (with their anti-stalking behaviours) - hopefully they allow manufacturer's to have different behaviours for items that aren't as portable (bicycles, stereo head units for cars, luggage) - so you COULD leverage the FindMy network for anti-theft purposes (in addition to finding).
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If the non-Apple trackers simply don't have the hardware for the "Find the precise location of an AirTag" function, then that function will not exist in them, so the anti-stalking functions can not trigger it
 
Rainbow Apple said:
If the non-Apple trackers simply don't have the hardware for the "Find the precise location of an AirTag" function, then that function will not exist in them, so the anti-stalking functions can not trigger it
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You think the Ultra-wideband radio is necessary for Apples anti-stalking features? Nope. AirTags talk to your iPhone and everyone else's over bluetooth. That allows the FindMy network to use its algorithms to determine behaviour and notify anyone of behaviour indicative of being tracked. The only difference I've seen in how Apple treats licensees thus far is it allows them to have active battery indicators (vs AirTags only alert when the battery is low).

UWB is only for precision finding.
 
fischersd said:
UWB is only for precision finding.
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That's my point.

Edit: I think you missed the "it" when I said "the anti-stalking functions can not trigger it". I never said that the anti-stalking functions themselves could not be triggered.
 
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fischersd said:
The compromise for this will be licensee's - OEM's that license Apple's FindMy network to help when their items are lost or stolen - I would anticipate that Apple would have different anti-stalking behaviours for these devices (eg. bicycles, knapsacks) as they are not similar to the easily pocketable AirTags.

Quite surprised we haven't seen a lot of car stereo systems embrace this yet - adding theft protection to your car - either built in by the car manufacturer or with add-on head units that consumers can purchase for their older vehicles.
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Thats very true. But I used it to track items incase they got stolen
 
SilvioInfante said:
Absolutely no aspect of AirTags is designed or intended to track stolen items.
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That may well be true. There are certainly many comments here that make the point. But times have changed and as @Coffee50 points out: today AirTags are used by many people who are under the impression that they're good for stolen items and/or have been for stalking.
Apple sells what they perceive the public will buy, at the same time as making a good profit. They will also jealously guard some of their core distinguishing features such as design and reliability*. They aren't the same as folk who insisted on continuing to sell buggy whips when other's started selling the motor car.
So I imagine Apple and their apparent partner Google will look to satisfy a much larger market, if they can, rather than sticking with a much smaller market. Of course both Apple and Google are pretty smart folk and we should expect they'll be successful. However, if they can't or can't do it in a way that meets their return on investment goals, they may decide there's more profitability in ceding the market to others and licensing their intellectual property.
* I can't not throw in my opinion that Apple's software quality seems to have dropped since Jobs left, and their UI design has packed in so much capability that it's nowhere as easy to use as it once was. Unfortunately it seems (to me) like they're packing in too much fluff at the expense of ease of use, and fragmenting their ecosystem by not ensuring that tools that run on their various operating systems provide reasonably similar user interface paths. But I acknowledge that Apple has much better capability, than I do, of deciding what to do to get the best bang for their investment buck.
 
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I have the TILE as they were out years before airtags were released. I like the reverse notification on the Tile which I can click and it will ring my phone.
Apple puposely does not advertise the tags for tracking stolen items, BUT (Wink, Wink) they know that tracking allows you to make the determination that an item is not misplaced and is stolen or vice versa. They are just trying to distance themselves from any liabilty and any violence that may occur in the attempts to retrieve "Stolen" items. This way they can say this is not how we advertise the purpose of this product.
 
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The only thing I use my Airtags for is mounting on items that are at risk of theft - like my car, bike and bags.

Would never buy them for things that get "lost" - the only time I misplace things is in my own home, and they're always small objects that the Airtags are too bulky for.
 
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1madman1 said:
The only thing I use my Airtags for is mounting on items that are at risk of theft - like my car, bike and bags.

Would never buy them for things that get "lost" - the only time I misplace things is in my own home, and they're always small objects that the Airtags are too bulky for.
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Why wouldn’t you buy something designed for those uses?
 
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