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kat.hayes

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 10, 2011
1,448
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I just set up an Airbag and during setup it asked me to to improve airtag location accuracy to switch my location from my iPad to the iPhone. How does the accuracy of where an airtag is located have anything to do with which device is being used to share my location?

Thanks
 
Probably because Apple believes most people are mobile with their iPhone most of the time versus the iPad.

My iPad sees all of my Airbags just like my iPhone. It is all tied to your Apple ID with Find My.

I have mine set to allow while using the app.
 
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the "share your location" doesn't really have anything to do with airtags, or tracking the location of airtags either belonging to you or others.

it's more about where find my thinks YOU actually are. If you share your location with others, with the way you have it set up it will show you as wherever your iPad is.

It might have to do with the "travel with" feature, If find my thinks you are where your iPad is, then technically your tag is not "with you" when you're out and about with just your phone. So others might get the "unaccompanied tag traveling with you" notification that they shouldn't get if you and your tag are traveling together.
In theory you shouldn't get that notification since the tag is registered to your account, but with the fairly obvious holes (family sharing), who knows if that slipped through too.


I'm not sure if any of your devices actually "see" the tags, unless you're in precision find mode. The tags send out the pings, and any apple devices that hear them forward those pings to apple. It's very possible that the location of your tags on all your devices is pulled from apple's servers as opposed to it actually being generated locally. I'm not sure how the encryption for find my works, but there's a good chance your devices don't even know that the ping is coming from one of your own tags.

Ultra Wideband only applies in precision find mode. And it will work no matter which device is sharing your location. It should have no impact on reporting locations to find my if your device doesn't have it.
 
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