Apple is doing everything it can to avoid antitrust violations by opening up their ecosystem, they don't care about third parties like Tile. If Tile is smart, they'll sell off to an investment group before their market share shrinks.
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Apple Announces Find My Network With Support for Third-Party Devices
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Yep, with the iPhone 4s, and has pretty much stood still since then while Alexa has strolled on past
They really should call this app Find, or Finder. I mean, I know, but still. Find My is such a bad name.
Will Tile support this I wonder and will that mean that any iPhone with 14.3 or later will be able to anonymously report where Tiles are located?
I am also a bit concerned with the future of all of this. How can we stop potential criminals from just placing trackable items on us and then see exactly where we are at all times?
I am also a bit concerned with the future of all of this. How can we stop potential criminals from just placing trackable items on us and then see exactly where we are at all times?
Perhaps "Apple Find"? Finder doesn't work since that is too connected to the Mac folder system.
My understanding is that the tag has to be within Bluetooth range of this vast "network" of Apple products. So if a cat was out in the middle of someone's backyard or something, it might not show up? Interested to know, because I have an older relative who would use this on her cat if it worked...Or people putting them in/on their pets when they go missing.
Is this documented somewhere? I wonder how this is possible, given that Apple is supposedly not able to read the location reports ...
I would also like to see the documentation but I imagine that it would work by using on-device detection. Your phone would detect items that are not yours (not connected to your Apple ID) and normally it wouldn't tell you. However, when the phone detects that another person's item is near you at all times it warns you and gives you an option to disable that item tracker.
This is just guesswork but I imagine that's how it would work.
Hm, yeah, that makes sense. It could alert you if it keeps seeing another user's lost tag nearby even if you move. That would require that the tag knows when it's "lost" and only sends the beacon then, otherwise you'd receive lots of false alerts if you e.g. rode a bus with other Apple users with tags on them.
But how would it prevent a "DoS attack" by a thief? Just take somebody else's tagged item, walk around with it for a while, and once you get the warning that you're being tracked tell Apple to disable the tracker.
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Yep. It’s like App Store to track items. Anyone can get in but has to be vetted. Exactly Apple way of doing things.
It will be interesting to see what happens but high value is not typically what Apple targets, they target high revenue and profit and at the price point, these won't have large revenue or profit margins in them. But who knows!
Maybe it's just the way I define "high value?" That's high-dollar-value (price) per cubic inch/cm of store display space. Let's say a two-pack or three-pack of AirTags priced at $49.99 in a box similar in size to a Lightning to USB cable or an iPhone leather case (very much the way Tiles are packaged). In terms of revenue-per-cubic-inch/cm, iPhone, Apple Watch, MacBooks, and the accessory wall are far more profitable than the average iMac or large screen display (the answer to the question, "Why doesn't Apple sell an actual Apple television?").It will be interesting to see what happens but high value is not typically what Apple targets, they target high revenue and profit and at the price point, these won't have large revenue or profit margins in them. But who knows!
This is why a fairly small gourmet foods shop does so well on a sales-per-square-foot basis. $40 bottles of artisanal extra-virgin olive oil, wedges of $35/lb. cheese, tiny $10 envelopes of Spanish saffron, $25/lb. Parma ham, $10 loaves of bread vs. $2 bottles of ketchup, $5/lb. pre-sliced American cheese, large packages of common table salt, $5/lb. domestic ham, and $2.50 bags of hot dog buns at the supermarket. Sure, the supermarket is drawing a much larger clientele and selling a much wider variety of goods, but the scale of the enterprise has to be huge in order to be profitable.
Exactly, Apple just gave tiles business model away to 3rd parties for free. Now any company can make a product like tile and not have to write an app for it.
I believe they would have to be consistently close for a longer period of time using on-machine learning for detection and connected to somebody else's Apple ID. It would look awfully suspicious if your tags took bus rides etc. without the owner being anywhere near them.Hm, yeah, that makes sense. It could alert you if it keeps seeing another user's lost tag nearby even if you move. That would require that the tag knows when it's "lost" and only sends the beacon then, otherwise you'd receive lots of false alerts if you e.g. rode a bus with other Apple users with tags on them.
But how would it prevent a "DoS attack" by a thief? Just take somebody else's tagged item, walk around with it for a while, and once you get the warning that you're being tracked tell Apple to disable the tracker.
I don't think it would be classified as a DoS attack but that thief would reveal their position for possibly days before the system would recognize it as an illegal tracker. Even if the thief managed to disable the tracker it would still be activation locked with the owner's Apple ID password rendering it useless and therefore not worth stealing.
No more than Apple gave its software business away when it opened the App Store. Are you also worried that Apple isn't doing enough to monetize iMessage and FaceTime?
These are all "free" services that are bundled into the price we paid for our Apple hardware. The more useful these software-based services are to us, the more value we get from our hardware purchase and the more likely we'll keep buying Apple hardware for years to come. And if we buy Apple hardware we're also likely to buy Apple services.
Any time Apple sells a package of Chipolo ONE Spots at Apple.com or at an Apple Retail Store, Apple will make a profit. Not as much as if they'd paid a factory to make AirTags, but it's still money in Apple's pocket, with far less capital invested. And because Chipolo has a motive to sell more Chiplo products, they are also promoting Apple's Find My service and the Apple brand in general. The bigger the Find My brand name becomes, the better for Apple.
The Find My infrastructure is just one more bit of cement between the bricks of the walled garden. Apple doesn't have to manufacture or monetize every brick in that wall because in the end, Apple is still the primary beneficiary of having that wall. Every feature and service that enhances the customer's experience helps ensure that your current iPhone will be replaced with a new iPhone, and that you'll replace your Windows PC with a Mac because it will work better with your iPhone, and when you decide to get a smart watch it will be an Apple Watch, and that your wireless headphones will be AirPods, and that the subscription services you buy will be more likely to be Apple subscriptions...
And did they do this to avoid anti-trust scrutiny? No. Apple is under no legal obligation to open Find My (or FaceTime, iMessage, iCloud, etc.) to third parties. The real legal problems come when Apple does open things up - then the companies doing business with Apple (or who would like to gain access to Apple's customers) start filing law suits or complain to government regulators about how unfair/restrictive Apple is.
Yes, this, more or less. Although I don't think the option to disable the tracker is appropriate - that also gives a thief/finder the power to disable Find My (or prevent the enabling of Lost Mode) against the will of the object's owner.
What seems appropriate is to notify a person that they are in possession of a tracking device that is not registered to their Apple ID. They might then choose to divest themselves of the tracker, report finding the lost device, turn it in to the police....
No, no alerts of nearby "lost" items - the purpose is not to create a worldwide lost-and-found system (or find-and-keep, like someone combing a beach with a metal detector), or a system for tracking and apprehending thieves.Hm, yeah, that makes sense. It could alert you if it keeps seeing another user's lost tag nearby even if you move. That would require that the tag knows when it's "lost" and only sends the beacon then, otherwise you'd receive lots of false alerts if you e.g. rode a bus with other Apple users with tags on them.
But how would it prevent a "DoS attack" by a thief? Just take somebody else's tagged item, walk around with it for a while, and once you get the warning that you're being tracked tell Apple to disable the tracker.
The only active parties to the recovery of lost items should be the person who has stumbled across that item, the owner of the item, and if necessary, law enforcement. Everyone else is a silent, un-knowing participant - their iPhone detects the presence of a tagged object and silently and anonymously relays that location information to Apple, which then routes the information to the owner of the object.
There's real danger in tracking down and confronting suspected thieves, even when you're a trained member of law enforcement. Amateurs/vigilantes confronting people and accusing them of theft can lead to all sorts of unhappy scenarios. The service is called "Find My," not "Catch a Thief."
What is the potential range of any of these things? Can I track an item globally? If not, why not? The chip that the developer is using in their device is the only limiting factor? We can track each other live globally using chat apps/cellular network, but that's because the phone is permanently connected. However, a lost phone can still be tracked if its battery is dead right?
I've used GPS tracking apps to record my hiking route even though I didn't have internet. Maps do not show because maps pull map data from the web. But the GPS chip is actually still recording lat/long position. When you go home and connect to the net, the maps download and the route you recorded without internet is then shown. So the phone GPS chip itself is always satellite ready.
I've used GPS tracking apps to record my hiking route even though I didn't have internet. Maps do not show because maps pull map data from the web. But the GPS chip is actually still recording lat/long position. When you go home and connect to the net, the maps download and the route you recorded without internet is then shown. So the phone GPS chip itself is always satellite ready.
They have Bluetooth range only, meaning only up to around 20 meters outside. That is why the network's value depends on each and everyone with an iDevice to send constant "pings" in order to tell everyone where their things are. These are anonymous and are sent encrypted to Apple's servers once a phone is close to a tracker tag. So everyone is dependent on internet connectivity and that is why as many people as possible needs to be in the crowdsourced network.
Go back and read what I wrote. ‘Tiles’ business model away. This is great for Apple, bad for Tile.
Tiles are being sold at Costco now. Usually I see a company discount their products and sell at Costco just prior to releasing their new model. Leads me to believe that Tile's new model will be integrated into Apple find my app.
Not sure how someone can disagree with this? Sonos are still going strong despite many saying the HomePod would end them, and Alexa is certainly moving leaps and bounds while Siri has been in a coma since 2013