Apple Clarifies How Many Items Can Be Tracked in Find My

[siddavis]

Did Apple confirm if FindMy will stop alerting me that my own AirPods Pro have been found near me and could be someone trying to track me? Seriously, WTF?!

 

[jarman92]

Considering how expensive Apple products really are, limiting Find My tracking is silly. Only a handful of people could get 32 trackable Apple devices.

The real problem is device handover. Sometimes old devices is still stuck with the old Find My account, cluttering the list of devices.

That’s a solved problem. Tap the device in Find My, scroll to the bottom of the card, tap “Erase this Device.”

 

[jarman92]

My wife and I aren't really rich, but with 2 iPhone 13s, a work iPhone 12, two Apple Watch 6s, two sets of headphones, two iPads, 3 computers (work gave me one), and 4 air tags, we are already at 16. Adding in a few more people to a family and its easy to get to 32.

The more concerning bit is why Apple keeps information like this secret. They've already had issues with making changes, not citing it anywhere, and essentially losing lawsuits over it. I don't know why they continue to insist on not telling us what they're doing.

How is it a “secret?” It’s right there on their Support page. It’s also not particularly relevant, judging by the fact that not a single commenter here appears to have bumped up against the limit.

 

[DogHouseDub]

I have 24 "Devices" and 14 "Items" - many are not connecting because they are off. I'll assume the limit comes into play if I were trying to connect to everything concurrently.

 

[StuBeck]

How is it a “secret?” It’s right there on their Support page. It’s also not particularly relevant, judging by the fact that not a single commenter here appears to have bumped up against the limit.

It wasn't there until a few days ago.

 

[vicviper789]

#define MAX_STUFF 32

I mean, I guess the fact so many of us are surprised means it’s not much of an issue, but it sure seems like an odd limitation, and surprisingly low. Especially if it used to be 16?

At least they didn't use a floating point number

 

[Gasu E.]

My wife and I aren't really rich, but with 2 iPhone 13s, a work iPhone 12, two Apple Watch 6s, two sets of headphones, two iPads, 3 computers (work gave me one), and 4 air tags, we are already at 16. Adding in a few more people to a family and its easy to get to 32.

Devices don't count against the limit; only "items". I count 6 items in your list, and 10 devices.

 

[Earendil]

Considering how expensive Apple products really are, limiting Find My tracking is silly. Only a handful of people could get 32 trackable Apple devices.

You can max this for significantly less money than a base iPhone pro. $712 vs $1000.

That assumes the iPhone its self doesn’t count towards the 32. If it does, it’d be even less.

 

[svish]

Glad to see the limit being increased, especially when AirPods Pro are not considered as a single item

 

[iSayuSay]

That’s a solved problem. Tap the device in Find My, scroll to the bottom of the card, tap “Erase this Device.”

I was always assuming old devices will be removed automatically when the new user bind it with their own Apple ID. But no, I've few old AirPods, Beats earphones, Apple Watches that still be on my list, long after I sold it.

You are right, you can always erase it from your Find My list, but frankly I was hoping I didn't have to because it's (supposedly) no longer tied to my Apple ID.

 

[fredrik9]

Why even the limit at all, especially for larger families?

This must be per Apple ID. Not per family. So a family of 4 could probably have up to 32x4=128 which must be enough.

 

[George Bailey]

Somebody hard-coded a 32 somewhere!

That seems unlikely. It used to be 16, so they would have had to make the same mistake twice. It's more likely a design decision based on several factors. It seems like a number they'd like to greatly increase and so are probably working to re-design the parts that currently make a higher limit impractical.

 

[1129846]

Somebody hard-coded a 32 somewhere!

Might be hard coded but being the fact that it falls at a power of 2 tells me that it is some other limitation and it not nearly as arbitrary as you think.

 

[ericdano]

I have 42 items in there if you count up Mac’s, iPads, watch, iPhone and AirTags…and it seems to work fine….

 

[vgmrm]

Either Apple is not willing to sell a lot of equipment to each user or it is a way to avoid technological addictions.