Apple's Rumored Tile Competitor May Offer ARKit and Leashing Capabilities

[koruki]

Find my keys? Find my wallet? Are we so A.D.D. that we need tech to do the light lifting for us too? At this rate, the screen generation is going to have full blown dementia by their fourties.

Actually the people who NEED this are parents not teenagers, when you're rushing out of the house and your kids put their shirt over your phone or keys wallet, you spend 10mins running around like a headless chicken looking for it while already running late cause the kids too forever to just zip their jacket. So please, if you don't need it just don't buy it but really I'm more worried about the current whining generation who cry about stuff others choose to buy.

 

[GadgetBen]

While my feelings toward Tile isn't as strong as your Kylo Ren level hatred of the Jedi order, I share some of your frustrations.

While their newest Tile Pro has user replaceable battery, they are uglier than non-serviceable and cheaper models.

While I understand why I need to grant "always" location services privacy, I wouldn't go as far and say I am 100% comfortable doing it. Take its privacy policy, for instance:

Wow, that is just legal jargon from Tile to open source our location data. Glad Apple is getting involved in this area to kill this.

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Find my keys? Find my wallet? Are we so A.D.D. that we need tech to do the light lifting for us too? At this rate, the screen generation is going to have full blown dementia by their fourties.

You clearly don’t have kids.
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I, for one, am shocked people don't walk down to the creek with a washboard to do their laundry anymore - how is everyone in such a hurry that they can't spend 6 hours doing their laundry? This generation is so technologically dependent they can't even read a sundial, pathetic.

Are you serious? Who argues about reading a Sundial!!

 

[Zoboomafoo]

Apple, please make a wallet with an approved apple card holder and this apple-tile-like thing in it.

 

[Gutwrench]

This sounds like a genuinely useful technology that people will take for granted in the future.

Or take advantage of... like slipping it on someone they want to track or stalk.

 

[Defthand]

People have been losing their wallets and keys for decades.

If tech can help us solve this problem, what’s the issue? Isn’t that the point of technology- To make our lives easier?

Do people repeatedly lose those items to warrant a wide net like Apple's solution? I imagine people more often misplace those items in familar places—not lose them in the wild. If that's a habit, they need self-awareness or medical attention, not a safety net.

As alarmed as the public is about privacy errosion, and as often as headlines reveal liberties taken by big consumer tech companies, you'd think people would think twice about allowing those companies to add more features that involve yet more surveillance.

 

[Bin Cook]

“And each tile is just $79”.

Woop woop, we love you, Tim.

 

[Defthand]

You clearly don’t have kids.

Not presently. They are grown. And they learned from their carelessness. I didn't have to slap beacons on their valuables so they could focus on the Internet more.

 

[littyboy]

Will it work if the phone is turned OFF? It says "asleep" in the article, so not sure if that means OFF or just not connected to service.

 

[AppleHaterLover]

I like Tile. My Bose SoundSport has Tile built-in and it has saved me $300 (lost it and found it under car seat, lost it but some other Tile user found it at thr office and it pinged me)

 

[Defthand]

I, for one, am shocked people don't walk down to the creek with a washboard to do their laundry anymore - how is everyone in such a hurry that they can't spend 6 hours doing their laundry? This generation is so technologically dependent they can't even read a sundial, pathetic.

All this tech to help you cope and you still complain that you are overworked, underpaid, and have to prepare a meal. You watch more entertainment and play more than any generation before and yet you're sleep deprived. Sounds like tech hasn't improved your situation in meaningful ways.

 

[rp2011]

I like Tile. My Bose SoundSport has Tile built-in and it has saved me $300 (lost it and found it under car seat, lost it but some other Tile user found it at thr office and it pinged me)

I wish Tile well. I like the idea of Tile but fails for me when I have needed it or I often hit the Tile button in my pocket accidentally.
It’s a fantastic concept that for me hasn’t worked the way I had hoped. Competition is great for the consumer.

 

[TJC PE]

At WWDC 2019, Apple announced Offline Finding, codenamed Blue Avengers, as one of the new features of iOS 13 and macOS Catalina. It allows users to find their devices even when their lost devices are not connected to the internet.

A background process called Search Party intermittently broadcasts and receives Bluetooth beacon signals so that every nearby online device running iOS 13 or macOS Catalina can relay the location of lost offline devices to their owners. Offline Finding even works if the device is asleep, in which case the device enters a "dark wake" state to broadcast a Bluetooth beacon signal. Apple uses public key encryption and rotates the public key to keep everyone's location information secure and private.

Beyond the ability to find devices themselves, Apple is rumored to be planning to compete with Tile and announce a small Bluetooth beacon device that uses the same Offline Finding technology as iOS 13 and Catalina devices. This small beacon device could be attached to personal items such as keys, purses or wallets so that the owner could find them even when out of range of the items. An ARKit "star" image discovered in the Find My app bundle hints at the possibility of using augmented reality to find lost devices or items, similar to Pixie Tracker.

Also according to code strings found in iOS 13, Apple may apparently allow these beacon devices to be "leashed" to an iOS or watchOS device so that the user would be notified when a beacon device is out of range of an iOS or watchOS device. Tile offers similar functionality, which it calls smart alerts and is only included with Tile's premium monthly service.

After upgrading to iOS 13 when it is released this Fall the Offline Finding feature is enabled by default if you have Find My iPhone and Bluetooth enabled. You can check that Offline Finding is enabled by going to Settings > Apple ID, iCloud, iTunes & App Store > Find My > Find My iPhone > Offline Finding.

Article Link: Apple's Rumored Tile Competitor May Offer ARKit and Leashing Capabilities

[doublepost=1567034117][/doublepost]I’ve always liked Tile for past two-three years - newer ones are even better.
Louder and better range.
I’ve got 18 different Tiles on keys, headphones, wallet, computer bags, luggage. Works great.
With wife and 4 adult kids each driving cars -it helps just to find any set of car keys to swap cars in the driveway.
I probably Tile ping and find something 2-3 times per week.

And by the way I can Tile Ping from my Apple Watch as well.
But If Apple makes something better I’ll be happy to switch.

 

[cmaier]

Will it work if the phone is turned OFF? It says "asleep" in the article, so not sure if that means OFF or just not connected to service.

Highly unlikely. Off means the radios are off.

 

[Icaras]

WTF - who wants this stuff. Get your house in order with your core products.

Add me as a +1 for I’d buy this.

And using you’re original quote.

 

[Sdtrueblue]

Actually the people who NEED this are parents not teenagers, when you're rushing out of the house and your kids put their shirt over your phone or keys wallet, you spend 10mins running around like a headless chicken looking for it while already running late cause the kids too forever to just zip their jacket. So please, if you don't need it just don't buy it but really I'm more worried about the current whining generation who cry about stuff others choose to buy.

I think a big opportunity here is for pets. Imagine having a tracker attached to your dog's collar, so if he got out and got anywhere close to someone with an iOS device, it would alert you as to his whereabouts. I think this has incredible potential and can't wait to hear more.

 

[MobiusStrip]

And what's wrong with their core products?

Plenty. Let's start with probably the oldest and most inexcusable of the iPhone's defects: no audible notifications of missed calls. WTF, phones had this in the '90s.

Then there's the piss-poor physical design. The lack of headphone jacks on MUSIC-CENTRIC devices is bad enough, but then Apple makes mobile devices with their most protruding surfaces made of GLASS. Talk about stupid.

Then there's the embarrassing and played-out "thinness" excuse for everything, when in fact the phone is only as thin as its thickest point: the camera-lens bulge. So does Apple do the right thing and simply make the back flush with those and use the extra volume for battery? Nope.

Then there's the lack of a Home button, so now the central UI of the device relies on non-indicated, lazy, and unreliable "gestures." More Easter-egg UI from the biggest hypocrite in the industry. "3-D Touch" was another attempt to simply give up on proper design and bury functionality in hidden gimmicks, but that was so inept that even Apple had to abandon it.

 

[JGIGS]

This is useful, but I hope Apple just sells the trackers outright and doesn't charge a monthly subscription. However this is the new Apple—I wouldn't bet against a subscription service.

If there is a subscription that's a big fat no thanks. Probably cheaper to replace something you lose once or twice in your life then pay a sub your the rest of your life and not lose anything.

 

[cmaier]

If there is a subscription that's a big fat no thanks. Probably cheaper to replace something you lose once or twice in your life then pay a sub your the rest of your life and not lose anything.

Depends on what you lose.

 

[citysnaps]

Find my keys? Find my wallet? Are we so A.D.D. that we need tech to do the light lifting for us too? At this rate, the screen generation is going to have full blown dementia by their fourties.

I hear you, bro. I was pretty steamed when someone came out with a telephone that fits in your pocket and can make phone calls, and even send and receive emails, when you're out and about.

 

[ersan191]

All this tech to help you cope and you still complain that you are overworked, underpaid, and have to prepare a meal. You watch more entertainment and play more than any generation before and yet you're sleep deprived. Sounds like tech hasn't improved your situation in meaningful ways.

I’m not even a millennial lol. You can be old and not crotchety, I promise it’s possible.

 

[fourfour44]

I would love this. I'd stick it on my kid's wallet, put one in her school backpack, sew one into her school jacket, and put one on every other thing she is constantly misplacing.

Heck, if they give these things the ability to beep, I'd stick 'em on my tv remotes too.

Would be nice for a remote, though I don't tend to misplace my Logitech Harmony remotes. But I wish they would have had Find My built into the Siri Remote 4 years ago when the 4th gen Apple TV came out and within days my Siri remote disappeared and has never been found, or 2 years ago when the 5th gen Apple TV 4K came out and despite my best efforts the Siri remote for that one gets misplaced all the time and has now currently been missing for a week or so.

 

[CarlJ]

Will it work if the phone is turned OFF? It says "asleep" in the article, so not sure if that means OFF or just not connected to service.

If there is any electricity (okay, technically, chemical potential to create electrical voltage) left in the battery, your phone is never really all the way off - how do you think it responds to you pressing that button to "turn it on" (it's not like that's a push-on/push-off physical switch that cuts the power). It's all a matter of how far asleep it is, and what it's able to do while it's "off".
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If there is a subscription that's a big fat no thanks. Probably cheaper to replace something you lose once or twice in your life then pay a sub your the rest of your life and not lose anything.

If it's $1/month, and you lose a $1,000 phone, that's 83 years worth of subscription payments.

I'm not arguing that it should be subscription-based or not, nor the amount, but your comparison seems to have large holes in it.

(I could imagine it being a small charge, like $1/mo, that was thrown into various bundles as a "freebie", or being something free, a benefit of being an Apple customer - other phone companies might have trouble matching it.)

 

[LuciusWrong]

]

 

[Bawstun]

Finally! FBI will be happy.

Bingo comment. This will be secretly exploited by world government / superpowers for sure.

 

[PickUrPoison]

If there is any electricity (okay, technically, chemical potential to create electrical voltage) left in the battery, your phone is never really all the way off - how do you think it responds to you pressing that button to "turn it on" (it's not like that's a push-on/push-off physical switch that cuts the power). It's all a matter of how far asleep it is, and what it's able to do while it's "off".

Apple could likely set aside a day or two of the “deep wake” power mode mentioned in the article. Bluetooth can be very low power, and the M-series coprocessor could handle the compute.

The XS/XS Max/XR already have a power reserve for Express Transit cards, which enables their use even if your iPhone needs charging (only 5 hours though).

"If iOS isn't running because iPhone needs to be charged, there may still be enough power in the battery to support Express Card transactions. Supported iPhone devices automatically support this feature with a transit card designated as the Express Transit card [and] student ID cards with Express Mode turned on."