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Exclusive: Apple's Tile Competitor Will Include 'Items' Tab in iOS 13's Find My App and Much More

iGeneo said:
Sure it is crowdsourcing, but how big is Tile's crowd? 1M 2M

How many iOS devices will be running iOS13 in the first week of release?

Tile is dead in the water
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Tile is only dead if Google and Samsung release their own competitor. Otherwise, they can market heavily across Android and iOS.
 
az431 said:
Not seeing any mention of the size anywhere in the article.
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True. I'm assuming CR2032 size, because that seems to be the best balance between power and size and is used by most trackers. CR2412 would work too. But even the smallest coin battery (CR1612) is 1.2mm thick. Making it replaceable means you can screw in a back, which would increase the size.

Say it's 2mm. That's the thickness of two credit cards and a bit.
 
iGeneo said:
Sure it is crowdsourcing, but how big is Tile's crowd? 1M 2M

How many iOS devices will be running iOS13 in the first week of release?

Tile is dead in the water
Click to expand...


Just like iPod, iPhone, Watch, AirPods, etc predictions when released.
 
PastaPrimav said:
Lots of reasons. And the fact alone that it seems like something they should have added on Day 1, and still haven't after 5 years, should tell you exactly that.

Here are some:

- It would be false positive hell. Apple Watch disconnects from iPhone all the time, but you don't realize it because it has both Wi-Fi and (for some) Celluar to fallback on it, and switch between. Since it doesn't constantly ping you everytime this happens, users are very unaware of the frequency.

- With the advent of Celluar on Apple Watch, leaving your phone behind is an intended use case, and it would be impossible to distinguish between intentional and unintentional.
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That just points to terrible design of the Apple Watch. My Galaxy Watch vibrates when it loses connection, which usually only happens when I go to the kitchen without my phone and I can almost predict the step it will happen on.
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archer75 said:
As far as I know, yes. As long as the app is installed and you've granted it the necessary permissions. It's crowd sourced and their site said anyone with the app installed relays data for lost trackers.

My trackers are on my dogs. I just opened the app and it says there are 1278 people nearby with tiles. And the community updated the most recent location for one of my tiles which is at home.
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The community member who last updated your tile... is inside your house... *jump scare*
 
SkippyThorson said:
^ This! Amazed Apple isn't shrinking these things sealed little things to the size of a dime, and including wireless charging?

We are taught to set everything else on a mat, so why shouldn't I be encouraged to set my keyring or car keys on it (or next to it) too?
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Wireless charging would make it thicker. And you'd have to gather all the tags for recharging. I expect the battery will last a year or so. Replaceables are the way to go.
 
imola.zhp said:
So how come we haven't been able to have this very basic feature (native, not 3rd party app crap) between iPhone and apple watch? My better half almost left his iPhone in an airport chair once, we were on the plane but they let him go back out and get it. Ugh, smart device failure.
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I actually left my phone in a casino in Vegas. It wasn’t until much later, while I was already back in my hotel room, that I glanced at my watch and noticed that red symbol that indicates I’m not connected to my iPhone. I was fortunate to get it back thanks to someone turning it in to security, but a haptic alert letting me know I’d been disconnected would have greatly reduced my panic time.

Is there currently a third party app that offers a solution to this?
 
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Glad to see a replaceable battery. Had a tile, but eventually it died, and you have to just throw it out.

Also, Bluetooth tracking is lame. The only times I needed to actually find the thing my tile was attached to, it was out of Bluetooth range. And you have to hope maybe somebody with the tile app sucking up juice in the background happens by it.
 
I’m just hoping there’s a firmware update to the AirPods case giving it “tag” tracking capabilities. There’s a large battery and BLE radio to work with and the current “Find My” AirPods only functions when the pods are out of the case and within one transmission length of their host device.
 
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jonnysods said:
I'll stick them on my kids at the fair!
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Just buy them apple watches with cellular. Far more reliable.
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archer75 said:
As far as I know, yes. As long as the app is installed and you've granted it the necessary permissions. It's crowd sourced and their site said anyone with the app installed relays data for lost trackers.

My trackers are on my dogs. I just opened the app and it says there are 1278 people nearby with tiles. And the community updated the most recent location for one of my tiles which is at home.
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You have to allow the tile app to run in the background. I found it to be a huge battery hog.
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archer75 said:
lol, just look at their site! Do a quick search! I posted the link to their site where they say it. I can see it in my own tile app where it shows how many people in my area are using tile and it also shows the location of one of my trackers being reported by the community. That's exactly how they work! Otherwise, how would it report it's location when it's out of range of my phone?

https://www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets...ile-how-does-find-with-tile-work-what-devices

"But there's also a much bigger community play here. If you're no longer in that area, you can tap the button to notify you when your device is found and the rest of the Tile community comes into play. When your lost item is detected by another Tile user, the location is passed back to you.

It's all anonymous, so you don't know who detects your item and they don't know they've detected your item, you will just have the location passed back to your app so you can go and find your missing possessions.

It's using this wider community that Tile has a big advantage - if you live in any sort of urban or suburban area, there's likely to be thousands of Tile users around you - so locating things you might lose becomes easier. As the community grows through more partnerships, the density of the Tile community will increase, again boosting the likelihood of your missing item being found."

"Tile connects you to the world’s largest search party so everyone using the app within range of your lost item can update its location for you." https://www.thetileapp.com/en-us/how-it-works
Is that not crowdsourcing?
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Yeah, that was not my experience. Tile never helped to find my missing object it was attached to.
 
dannyyankou said:
The price has to be reasonable, don’t charge $50 for each one. I’d like to stick one of these in my wallet.
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For sure - this is going to be huge. Everyone is going to love these.

My guess on price would be 1 for $20. 5 for $50.

If it's higher than that, it will have rechargeable battery and inductive charging.
 
zakarhino said:
The biggest shocker of this article: the tags have REMOVABLE batteries that can be replaced by the user
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It doesn't say they aren't proprietary though

That or a subscription service is the only way Tim authorises this product, no chance it will have a one time fee
 
GadgetBen said:
It really isn’t the same thing at all! All
I’m asking you to do is educate yourself before you make false claims:

https://www.wired.com/story/apple-find-my-cryptography-bluetooth/

P.S have you read Tide’s privacy policy? It’s not a great read. I suspect this is another area Apple will capitalise on for these devices.
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archer75 said:
That article doesn't disprove anything I said! Devices relaying location automatically using a community of devices. Which is what tile does. In either case it's anonymous, you don't know your device just relayed a location. It's seamless.
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Oh gosh. What a heated debate. :eek:

With information pieces provided by both of you before doing any research myself, my understanding is either Apple or Tiles will rely on some form of software to control Bluetooth and send anonymous location data. Apple can do this on a system level, providing deeper integration, while Tiles needs to use whatever API iOS or Android provides to achieve the same thing.

And I just realise WIRED has gone subscription mode. It was not back in 2016 and 2017. :eek:

After reading that WIRED article, it seems that Apple’s underlying idea of tracking item using iPhone works similarly than Tiles in a higher level. It’s a bit more about Apple’s approach to maintain anonymity to a greater extent because this same feature is backed into iOS 13 (and above) rather than running over an app. I cannot fully understand the basic idea of the encryption, but I consider that part more of a bonus than something that defines the major difference between Apple’s implementation and Tiles app-based solution.
 
thelonelylimo said:
Hopefully they implement something similar into Apple Card 2. As it’s already in my wallet 99% of the time.
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It's too thin to contain a battery, it thus needs to be powered externally by an NFC field which only has a reach of a few centimetres.
 
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