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I'll be honest, the way a lot of you are describing how this will work sounds like a stalker's dream to me. See some girl get out of her car at Target, put a hidden tracker in her tire well, and follow her everywhere. I can't see any way that Apple of all companies will allow that to happen. How they will prevent this I don't know. They could notify you if a tracker other than your own is nearby, but that would very annoying.

I'm interested to see how this will work.

and when battery ran out he will have to find a way to charge it somehow.
 
No I’m not a bot or a spammer I’m real. You guys come on.

Nice photo. Cute. But...

You're in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down...

It doesn't make any difference what desert, it's completely hypothetical.

Maybe you want to be by yourself. Who knows? You look down and see a tortoise, Theyarealivin. It's crawling toward you...

You know what a turtle is?

You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back, Theyarealivin.

The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping.

I mean: you're not helping! Why is that, Theyarealivin?

They're just questions, Theyarealivin. Shall we continue?
 
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Now, if Apple does make the API available and then rescinds it so they can launch their own tag device than maybe they could make that argument.

That’s what I keep saying, they nuked it somewhere around iOS13 “for our own good” but in preparation for AirTags
 
Ever had a bike or car stolen ?

This will be interesting depending on how they work.
If your Bike?car is stolen and they have about 100 - 200 year range, then you better hope the thief lives VERY nearby!

On the other hand, if they have a MASSIVE range as they work via cell tower? them would you want to guy in the pub you meet, knowing where your home is 50 miles away as he stuck one under your car?
 
That’s what I keep saying, they nuked it somewhere around iOS13 “for our own good” but in preparation for AirTags

I googled it but can’t find evidence that they ever had legit access to it. Do you have a source that suggests that happened?
 
Hm .. what applications would change my life?

Ridge wallet with built in Airtag?
Implanted airtag in my teenage kids?
 
I googled it but can’t find evidence that they ever had legit access to it. Do you have a source that suggests that happened?

I think @7149041 referred to this
Apple made sweeping changes in ‌iOS 13‌, rolling out the ‌Find My‌ app alongside privacy-oriented changes that make it harder for third-party app developers to track customers without their knowledge.

According to Tile, ‌Find My‌, which is designed to let users locate lost iOS and Mac devices, has a major advantage over competing products because location tracking for ‌Find My‌ is enabled by default, while Tile must obtain user permission for location access in "deep, hard-to-find smartphone settings" that also has to be reauthorized with regular follow-up reminders.

The keywords here is “without users knowledge”. Looks like normal Apple privacy policy upgrade yet some will resort to conspiracy theory.

 
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I will be definitely buying these. My 3yo threw my XS Max along with photos, tv remote and a shoe in the trash. Luckily I only had paper sitting in the top and used Find My iPhone to locate my phone and the other items were next to it. This would be useful for our iPhones so much.
 
Plop it on a charging pad every several months for a couple hours and be good to go.

If AirTags need to be charged every several months that’s going to be a non-starter. The bar Apple needs to achieve is Tile’s approx 1+ year battery life.
 
Why are these things so special, I don't get the use cases for this. If you can't find something to the point you need to track it on your phone is it really that important to you. And, yeah, if someone steals it they'll never think to take the battery out.

You seriously don't get the use case for this? Your wallet or car keys aren't important to you?

They may not be useful to you, but to say you don't 'get it' seems a bit disingenuous.
 
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Ever heard of Tile???? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, classic Apple.
I sure have... every time my husband sits on his wallet or bends over with his keys in his pocket, his Tile rings my damn phone.
"First to market" doesn't necessarily equal "best in class."
 
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Even if those AirTags cost $20 apiece, if Apple were able to sell about five million of them every year, that's pretty decent revenue. I just can't think of what I would use them for. I usually misplace small things that aren't worth very much. I could use one for my bicycle, but I always lock it up to something if I walk away from it. I'm sure it would be good for putting in luggage and possibly attaching it to pet's collars (dogs and cats).
 
Why are these things so special, I don't get the use cases for this. If you can't find something to the point you need to track it on your phone is it really that important to you. And, yeah, if someone steals it they'll never think to take the battery out.

I suspect Apple is also using airtags to seed the ground for Apple glasses.

Here’s my thoughts on how they will all factor in.
Airtags - grant location awareness. Imagine having an airtag in your car, designating it as such, and being able to see its location via some special marker when you are in the carpark.

App clips - all the power of the mobile web combined with the UI with native apps optimised for AR glasses.

Imagine using your glasses to scan an Apple QR code, quickly download a parking app (made possible with 5g), login using Sign In with Apple, pay with Apple Pay.

All made possible because Apple controls every aspect of their ecosystem.

Using airtags to keep track of your car keys is the most obvious application, and likely just the icing on the cake. We simply aren’t seeing the whole picture yet.
 
I suspect Apple is also using airtags to seed the ground for Apple glasses.

Here’s my thoughts on how they will all factor in.
Airtags - grant location awareness. Imagine having an airtag in your car, designating it as such, and being able to see its location via some special marker when you are in the carpark.

App clips - all the power of the mobile web combined with the UI with native apps optimised for AR glasses.

Imagine using your glasses to scan an Apple QR code, quickly download a parking app (made possible with 5g), login using Sign In with Apple, pay with Apple Pay.

All made possible because Apple controls every aspect of their ecosystem.

Using airtags to keep track of your car keys is the most obvious application, and likely just the icing on the cake. We simply aren’t seeing the whole picture yet.


I can already do that with my car and with all the other applications that are becoming mainstay in the cars nowadays it just doesn't seem to be a realistic value.

As far a s the glasses you might be right, I can see some real words use cases for them but I still can't for normal every day use... yet.
 
You seriously don't get the use case for this? Your wallet or car keys aren't important to you?

They may not be useful to you, but to say you don't 'get it' seems a bit disingenuous.


Putting a thick piece of tech in my wallet to make it even bigger than it is already is not something most people will do. You named two things that most people don't need to track and I'm not being disengnuous about it at all. The tile has been out for years and they aren't breaking any record books selling them for the use cases you described above.
 
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This!

I LOVED the concept of TrackR when they first came out. I bought multiple. It just didn't live up to expectations.

I never bought Tile because all reviews are just mediocre, on average.



Hey, GREAT job at gaslighting! 👍

ADHD exists. Dissociation disorders exist. TBI exists. Illnesses impacting memory exist. (heck, toddlers and pets hiding keys and other things, exist).

Unless you experience it yourself or within a loved one, I suggest you cut down on the judgment a little.


Talk about being overly sensitive and creating something that wasn't there to begin with. If anyone is judging and 'gaslighting' here it's you. You have no idea what I am or have dealt with in my life. And in those cases, the Tile or any of these devices would not have helped.

In addition, if you have a hard time with children or pets taking keys and hiding them on you, how about hanging them up out of reach?

These devices, if they are actually made by Apple, aren't supposed to be niche things, Apple doesn't make niche things by design, they make things to be sold in large quantities and serve a large customer base over a larger group of use cases. This doesn't seem like that kind of device.
 
Imagine someone jacks your car and drives off with it, and you have an airtag inside that is capable of relaying its location to you. If he is in a hurry, he may not have the time to search the whole car for a possibly non-existent tracker. To add insult to injury, it would be even more ironic if the thief himself were carrying an iPhone, because this means the location of your car is being triangulated off his iPhone.

This is a huge benefit compared to the tile tracker, because said product would be leveraging off an install base of over a billion devices, while the tile had to build up its user base from nothing.

In addition, I suspect the airtags is going to be integral to the apple glasses working properly, so I am most intrigued to see what role it plays in the bigger picture. It's always fun to see Apple lay the foundation for future products and initiatives.


Lets go down that path.

1 - How does the airtag relay that information when it's out of range of your phone?
 
Lets go down that path.

1 - How does the airtag relay that information when it's out of range of your phone?

The same way find my works when the device is out of range of your phone.


cc5bd5c5633dc04b700b6dff7c9621b2.png
 
The same way find my works when the device is out of range of your phone.


.....

Ya, I suppose that might be fine for certain things but I think it's going to be different for such a small device with limited power and range. But it's plausible.
 
Shame you cant use these things where it be MOST useful,... Finding your pair of glasses.
 
They work locally over about 20m’s. if you lose a device beyond that distance as long as another user goes within 20m’s then you’ll be notified of the devices location. So effectively they have global coverage / range so long as there’s users and data. The advantage Apple has is the number of users. Most items will be at some time close to an Apple device.

i hear ya. I just don’t see their usefulness. Why not just build this feature inside every Apple product? Like in find my iphone? Is it practical to attach one of these tags lets say to your airpods? I don’t think so. And if an item is stolen, won’t the thief just peal off the tag? I was thinking it could be useful to attach to your drone if you fly drones to locate it if it crashes? I still need convincing tho of their practicality. Right now I am not convinced. But maybe I will be after I actually see them in action.
 
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