The alerts don't apparently occur until you've been away from it for hours. My understanding is also that the Airtag doesn't do the alerting if it's sitting at a known location such as your home or another location you've created.
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Apple Announces AirTag Updates to Address Unwanted Tracking
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The alerts don't apparently occur until you've been away from it for hours. My understanding is also that the Airtag doesn't do the alerting if it's sitting at a known location such as your home or another location you've created.
Still no family sharing. That is a bummer.
I don't think that they chirp or alert people unless it leaves the owner's side. So you won't have to worry about this fictitious scenario happening anytime soon
They are going to nerf these to oblivion because of rare events popularized on the internet.
Whatever makes them the most money! Which unfortunately burglaries do not.
Yes, it will. You are thinking too tactically. If you use the device on the same network as your legitimate one, they will both show in the logs. It is relatively trivial for law enforcement to request the associate AppleID and IP address and details on any other AppleIDs from that same IP address. That could then lead them to an approximate location, or even a cell phone number/address. There are tons of bread crumbs that digital activity leaves behind. Will some take the extra measures to avoid these issues? Maybe, but they will slip up in some stupid way (eg, using the "free" wifi at a coffee shop where the time stamp in the server logs can be matched to security camera footage).
All good changes, but also potentially extremely annoying if they will continue to not support family sharing with these things.
My wife went on a business trip and left the diaper bag for me to carry while she was gone. Apple thought I was being tracked by her airtag for 3 days, and there was nothing I could do.
My wife went on a business trip and left the diaper bag for me to carry while she was gone. Apple thought I was being tracked by her airtag for 3 days, and there was nothing I could do.
IMO, it is a mismatch between customer demand/expectation and functionality as designed. Most people will not misplace their backpack or other items and need to find them with AT, but want a way to track them down if someone snags it while they are sitting in a coffeehouse or library.
My daughter wears one to school on her shoe hidden in a cute little case that makes it look like a charm. Can I not do this anymore now? She likes it because she has to walk far to the bus stop.
In the past few years they’ve broken up some child sex trafficking rings in our relatively small college town which really put me on edge. Like a mile from my house they were whoring out little girls. And that’s like on the way between here and my daughter’s school. Will it stop working or start beeping in her class?
Of course I wouldn’t put it on a teenager but my kids are little. Ugh this sucks. Gave me some piece of mind to have a stealth tracking device on her if she doesn’t make it to school. The other day her bus was running late to school and she missed attendance by like a minute and the school called us to tell us she was absent and it about gave my wife a heart attack but I could see she was at school because of the tag.
In the past few years they’ve broken up some child sex trafficking rings in our relatively small college town which really put me on edge. Like a mile from my house they were whoring out little girls. And that’s like on the way between here and my daughter’s school. Will it stop working or start beeping in her class?
Of course I wouldn’t put it on a teenager but my kids are little. Ugh this sucks. Gave me some piece of mind to have a stealth tracking device on her if she doesn’t make it to school. The other day her bus was running late to school and she missed attendance by like a minute and the school called us to tell us she was absent and it about gave my wife a heart attack but I could see she was at school because of the tag.
So a couple of things to make AirTags more usable, would be for family sharing to be a thing that way parents could track their kids, or kids can track their elderly dementia suffering parents who like to go on random walks and get lost.
Second thing they should add is the ability to temporarily disable them for when you leave your car at the garage for repairs or lend an AirTagged item to a friend etc, the tag you have attached to your keys/item wont beep and annoy the mechanics or friend etc, once in temporary deactivated mode you can only reactivate the tag when it is held near one of your iDevices that is signed in with the Apple ID used to register them to begin with.
I think these suggestions would solve a lot of the use cases/issues that people mentioned above my reply, obviously still doesn’t help for tracking lost luggage at an AirPort or something nor does it solve the people scanning for valuables on a train etc but its a start.
Second thing they should add is the ability to temporarily disable them for when you leave your car at the garage for repairs or lend an AirTagged item to a friend etc, the tag you have attached to your keys/item wont beep and annoy the mechanics or friend etc, once in temporary deactivated mode you can only reactivate the tag when it is held near one of your iDevices that is signed in with the Apple ID used to register them to begin with.
I think these suggestions would solve a lot of the use cases/issues that people mentioned above my reply, obviously still doesn’t help for tracking lost luggage at an AirPort or something nor does it solve the people scanning for valuables on a train etc but its a start.
There's a certain amount of time before it beeps. It may be able to get through a day away from your devices. It may start beeping at the end of it. We don't know what the time limit will be.
They did not mean for you to use it to track your kids. I mean if your kid gets kidnapped they can search through clothes and look for any electronic device any way (watches, phones, anything). Plus it doesn't have any emergency calling or anything which is the most useful thing in a kidnapping situation. You could use the Apple Watch for tracking your kids in the family sharing mode, just a suggestion. That would allow emergency calling at least.
Oh for those worrying about whether some thief can scan for an AirTag on public transport I wouldn’t worry, it appears the AirTags don’t reveal their location to other people unless separated from their owner or the owner puts the item in lost mode.
Just done a scan for items in my house as my wife has an AirTag under her AppleID and the Child has one under her AppleID too and nothing is appearing when I scan, so it seems as if they stay hidden when near the owners iDevices which prevents that thief scanning for valuables by looking for AirTags thing from occuring. At the airport though this might be a different story although I imagine there must be a specific time period after which a tag disconnects from the owners iDevice and it becoming visible.
Just done a scan for items in my house as my wife has an AirTag under her AppleID and the Child has one under her AppleID too and nothing is appearing when I scan, so it seems as if they stay hidden when near the owners iDevices which prevents that thief scanning for valuables by looking for AirTags thing from occuring. At the airport though this might be a different story although I imagine there must be a specific time period after which a tag disconnects from the owners iDevice and it becoming visible.
It was thought out just fine. They do exactly what they are supposed to do, which is let me find my crap when I misplace it.
AirTags are such a sad product for me. So much potential, so many ideas, all ruined by whiners crying over nonsense concerns. You can buy GPS trackers for cheap and have much better-stalking capability. Apple absolutely ruined the use of this product.
And before you respond "IT IS AN ITEM FINDER NOT THEFT DETTERANT" it barely even works like that now, say I lost my bag in the airport, after just a few hours its beeping and screaming PLEASE REMOVE ME.
And before you respond "IT IS AN ITEM FINDER NOT THEFT DETTERANT" it barely even works like that now, say I lost my bag in the airport, after just a few hours its beeping and screaming PLEASE REMOVE ME.
Except that it's not designed to do that and Apple have said that multiple times. Multiple times.
You should maintain posession of your bags at all times in an airport. A bag with no owner in an airport or other crowded public place isn't a lost bag. It's a security threat.
I do wonder how long this will actually be in Apple’s lineup for. They’re still in their infancy, and I think they do serve a purpose for those who legitimately have specific use cases, but if they turn problematic where it’s causing privacy issues for unknowing individuals, then I could see Apple eliminating this product, that is if it’s not entirely meeting their expectations in profit.
Do most people leave all their keys with their mechanic? I usually just give them the one key for my vehicle.
Oh don't worry about that. There are very strict laws against that. ?
We bought an AppleWatch SE for our daughter. It can be removed obviously, but hopefully it'll be enough if something like that ever happened. If not, may God have mercy on their souls when they are eventually caught.
