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Apple Announces AirTag Updates to Address Unwanted Tracking

now i see it said:
Maybe they should have thought this through (perhaps deeply) before dumping these things into the world.
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They did, actually. These are further improvements. You didn't expect them to release a perfect product with absolutely no way to improve upon on day 1, did you? That never happens with any company in any industry on day 1 or even years later - almost always ways to make things better in response to user-feedback, etc.
 
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These things sounded good at first but they’re a disaster. Crooks can get away with what they want and victims of stalking or theft are left in the dark. What’s the point of a tracker if the bad actor can disable it? Also, on the flip side, they’re not a good tracker in the first place. If you truly lose an item (it’s not just “lost” in the house), you’re not in a very good position to find it. You’re relying on the thief to not disable the tracker (see above) and to have an Apple device nearby. Honestly, they’re a consumer grade “good enough” accesory that does more harm than good.
 
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laptech said:
and when it starts reporting that there is an airtag nearby they will activate precision to find who is the person that has the airtag and then see if that person has something worth stealing.
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I'm pretty sure if someone is close to their Airtags the alerts to other people won't happen. And the precision finding won't be available unless it specifically alerted someone on their iPhone.

So that won't apply unless the owner lost their item (bag or whatever) because they're out of Bluetooth range.
 
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dannyyankou said:
I don't know how effective telling criminals "this is a crime, don't do it" will be
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Obviously there are always some people who will go to great lengths to break the law while covering their tracks, but I can guarantee you a LOT of people who are more casually contemplating using an AirTag for stalking (either as a prank or more malicious intentions) could easily be dissuaded at the thought of getting caught and charged with a crime. There's simply no downside to the disclaimer/warning.
 
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DMinTX said:
Why didn’t this issue plague the Tile trackers? Other than being a bit more restrictive on who the anonymous tracking was from, it is a similar concept.
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Simply because there weren't enough people with Tile apps. Because it's Apple it got more attention, and it uses potentially billions of devices to enable the network to be useful.
 
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If you're using this for nefarious purposes then it wouldn't be that hard to make a new Apple ID, get a cheap SIM with cash and then there's almost no identifying info beyond your IP address and location.

Also it's not like tracking wasn't possible before AirTags. I still think this issue is overblown.
 
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vertsix said:
literally bought them for anti-theft purposes. oh well, i suppose that i will be returning them.

also, an item being STOLEN is congruent to an item being LOST. the deterioration of the primary use case of the airtag is disappointing.
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Well, I'm not sure how Apple could possibly have it do both things well. If you allow the "stalking alerts" to be disabled in order to make it more effective as an anti-theft device, then you're opening the floodgates to undetected stalking. Therefore, it makes much more sense for them to be designed as a tracking device for lost/misplaced items only.
 
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usagora said:
Well, I'm not sure how Apple could possibly have it do both things well. If you allow the "stalking alerts" to be disabled in order to make it more effective as an anti-theft device, then you're opening the floodgates to undetected stalking. Therefore, it makes much more sense for them to be designed as a tracking device for lost/misplaced items only.
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They need to make a huge Airtag for anti-theft. Like a 45 lbs barbell. Then you'll notice it when it's slipped into your coat pocket!
 
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deeddawg said:
"It is impossible to make anything foolproof, because fools are so d*mn ingenious."... :)

Likely the best insight we can have as to the product design team's vision is to look at the marketing. Looking at the page on Apple's site, it seems they're marketed as a tool to help find stuff you've misplaced or left behind. They also apparently did have some thought to misuse given the initial features alerting to an unknown airtag nearby, a capability they're enhancing further.

I don't own an airtag - how long away from your phone before it begins beeping or alerting others? I'd understood it was several hours. How much shorter of a time is it?

I'm also curious about the keys left for car repair thing... Maybe I'm too old school, but I always would leave my spare or valet key with the mechanic. I still needed the other keys on my keyring for door locks and file cabinet locks. Do people really leave those other keys with their car when it's being serviced?
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Marketing. That makes sense.

For me, I leave a valet key unless the repairs require use of the stock key. I then detach it from my key ring.

I tried an AT but found it was inconsistent for my use.
 
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How long does the thing need to travel with someone before it starts bleeping? I use it to track my luggage and it'd be really annoying if it kept bleeping all the time.
 
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vertsix said:
also, an item being STOLEN is congruent to an item being LOST. the deterioration of the primary use case of the airtag is disappointing.
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unfortunately, locating your stolen property without alerting the thief is also congruent to the locating the stalker's target without alerting the victim.

In both situations the owner of the trackers wishes it to be undetected by the person it is with.

Plus, think about if Apple were to market AirTags for finding stolen property and people started getting assaulted and/or shot when trying to recover their stuff themselves. Lawsuits galore.
 
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usagora said:
Obviously there are always some people who will go to great lengths to break the law while covering their tracks, but I can guarantee you a LOT of people who are more casually contemplating using an AirTag for stalking (either as a prank or more malicious intentions) could easily be dissuaded at the thought of getting caught and charged with a crime. There's simply no downside to the disclaimer/warning.
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That's true, but on the other hand couldn't the warning give people ideas? I don't know, I just feel like the more attention it's getting the more common these incidents are.
 
friedmud said:
This is actually something that is keeping me from using them. If I take a different car and leave one set of keys at home... will they beep all day? If I put them in my luggage - will they beep the entire time they are in transit? If it's in my wife's purse... will it beep while she's gone to the restroom in a restaurant?
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Easy solution, spend 5 minutes and remove the speaker. I've found them to be a great checked baggage and freight shipment tracker.
 
I’m just waiting till the update where it makes AirTags perfectly safe. If you want to find something you have to call Apple and then once they send an agent to verify what you’re looking for and after they see your identification, birth certificate and do a background check they will find the item for you ??
 
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dannyyankou said:
That's true, but on the other hand couldn't the warning give people ideas? I don't know, I just feel like the more attention it's getting the more common these incidents are.
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If someone literally hasn't realized they could use an AirTag for stalking until they read that warning message, then I don't think they have a criminal enough mind to try it, especially in light of the potential consequences ?
 
I certainly appreciate the illegal tracking concerns, but the more and more they try to address this, the less and less desirable this product is for me. I guess I didn’t think about it just as something to put on things that are always supposed to be with me. What if I just want to track something like my gym bag that I only bring with me 3 or 4 times a week? Or what about people who are putting these on their remotes? The use cases get greatly diminished if the primary consideration is to notify everyone in earshot that there is a thing that has been “detached” from its owner.
 
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sw1tcher said:
?

dumastudetto, meet CSAM.

CSAM, meet dumastudetto.
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I love Apple but the only thing they’re going to put first is profit margin and maybe political pressure. Of course this is every company so it’s not exclusive to Apple. You can’t really hate an apple for this because you’d have to hate on every company
 
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HiVolt said:
That's nice and dandy, but it still offers no default detection on Android devices. Apple should have worked with Google to bake in the automatic detection on Android devices via an update. If they need to pay to have it implemented, they should be doing so.

Telling Android users that they need to download an app and proactively scan for the trackers is absurd.

They should not have released the product without this safeguard. This is not the way to attract people to switch to Apple.
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Samsung doesn’t even offer an app for iPhone users to alert them they are being tracked. They don’t even alert fellow Samsung users. Tile don’t alert people either. Apple are going above and beyond what existing players in the market are doing.
 
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