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Google Launches Android Find My Device Network

steve09090 said:
To be fair. Tile only worked in San Fran where other tiles were. AirTags worked across the world at launch. Having a tag might have been tiles idea. Having it work well is Apples. They implemented it properly whereas Tile, if they had have thought of it, couldn’t have used android in the first instance. I’m glad android now has this and maybe they won’t feel so aggrieved with iMessage.
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That's false. Tile most definitely worked outside of one city. It used a proximity to phone system just like Samsung and Apple. The issue is that when Apple decided to create their own network they limited the Tile apps ability to work in the background thus granting their own system an unfair advantage. That's not innovation or competition, that just playing dirty.
 
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Arsenikdote said:
They are not working together, the third party MFG is leveraging both systems within their solution.
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It has to be third-party only as Google does not have anything similar to Airtags and I doubt Apple will make Airtags work with anything else. This is the highest level of interoperability that can be achieved right now, as things stand.
 
mike2q said:
That's false. Tile most definitely worked outside of one city. It used a proximity to phone system just like Samsung and Apple. The issue is that when Apple decided to create their own network they limited the Tile apps ability to work in the background thus granting their own system an unfair advantage. That's not innovation or competition, that just playing dirty.
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My bad. That's how I thought it worked. But it appears it had to be used with the Tile App on iOS first, and then Android when the app was introduced on that platform. I don't believe that has changed. Whereas the AirTag, being Apple could work all of the time, because it was integrated into Find My. Notwithstanding, you always needed to have the Tile App and why would anyone have it when they didn't have a Tile. Is that correct?

As far as playing dirty. Is it possible that using Apples network all the time could let Tile know the actual wearabouts of a particular phone, thus getting past Apple's security/privacy?
 
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steve09090 said:
My bad. That's how I thought it worked. But it appears it had to be used with the Tile App on iOS first, and then Android when the app was introduced on that platform. I don't believe that has changed. Whereas the AirTag, being Apple could work all of the time, because it was integrated into Find My. Notwithstanding, you always needed to have the Tile App and why would anyone have it when they didn't have a Tile. Is that correct?

As far as playing dirty. Is it possible that using Apples network all the time could let Tile know the actual wearabouts of a particular phone, thus getting past Apple's security/privacy?
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You are correct in that yes, you would have to have the app for it to work. It is also true that an app that can track your location in the background could be a security issue. That said, you have to decide which apps to trust. I know family finding apps are able to do this. I would hope that people who use those apps vet the companies before granting permissions but at the end of the day it should be the users decision if to trust an app. I just feel it was very distasteful for Apple to call this a security measure when it was clearly a way to hurt the earlier competitor. This is why Apple is currently being scrutinized by every major government on the planet right now. The EU, the US, Japan, China, the UK, Australia and others are all seeing Apple as an anti-competitive company that uses its market dominance (rather than innovation) to squeeze out rivals.
 
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mike2q said:
You are correct in that yes, you would have to have the app for it to work. It is also true that an app that can track your location in the background could be a security issue. That said, you have to decide which apps to trust. I know family finding apps are able to do this. I would hope that people who use those apps vet the companies before granting permissions but at the end of the day it should be the users decision if to trust an app. I just feel it was very distasteful for Apple to call this a security measure when it was clearly a way to hurt the earlier competitor. This is why Apple is currently being scrutinized by every major government on the planet right now. The EU, the US, Japan, China, the UK, Australia and others are all seeing Apple as an anti-competitive company that uses its market dominance (rather than innovation) to squeeze out rivals.
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I understand the anti competitive behaviour and I am completely on board with those Governments mentioned are investigating Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon etc. That should always happen. I do however, have an issue with a company having access to tracking my phone ad hoc. At least with the system the Apple Way, I can choose to let an individual app either track me or not in settings, rather than have a cart blanche access. It's this sandboxing that I prefer and what draws me to the iPhone. But we can agree to differ. Thanks for the info.
 
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“By default, the network will only find trackers when there are multiple Android devices nearby. This is meant to make it more difficult to track someone in a private location, like at home, but it also means that when you lose your keys while hiking in a forest or when a potential thief takes it to their home, you might not be able to rely on the network”

Google likes giving the thieves incentives. Apple’s implementation is better at this point, hopefully it doesn’t change any time soon
 
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BobVB said:
Who would want Google being able to access the location of their stuff?
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I don't know about other users, but Google has my location access and I can see at any time all the locations I've driven to, which has been handy.
Honestly this does not bother me. I'd actually be flattered if Google felt I was important enough to put any effort into tracking me for a reason :)

If I was a King or Queen or head of State etc, then perhaps I would have reason to worry, but as, like 99.999% of people here I'd totally unimportant, Google's computer system knowing my location is pretty meaningless to everyone.
 
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Good to have such an app on the Android side. Took some time for Google to release it.
 
Let's do a Patent Tally and Application Tally Between Google and Apple, and others that people seem to forget about.

Google/Alphabet: (25 years and running)

Patents Granted: 28,252
Patent Applications: 8090
Federal Litigations: 2,376
Federal District Court Decisions: 4,604
State Court Decisions: 462
Federal Appellate Court Decisions: 167

Apple: (48 years and running)

Patents Granted: 33,544
Patent Applications: 10,161
Federal Litigations: 1,763
Federal District Court Decisions: 2,259
State Court Decisions: 355
Federal Appellate Court Decisions: 166

Now let's check out the big gun.

IBM: (112 years and running)

Patents Granted: 158,782
Patent Applications: 69,852
Federal Litigations: 1,367
Federal District Court Decisions: 776
State Court Decisions: 236
Federal Appellate Court Decisions: 31


If you think Google is the big honcho in innovation you're just not following patents.

Let's add some more:

Microsoft: (49 years ago and running)

Patents Granted: 51,288
Patent Applications: 37,530
Federal Litigations: 2,355
Federal District Court Decisions: 1,340
State Court Decisions: 238
Federal Appellate Court Decisions: 56

Intel: (55 years and running)

Patents Granted: 51,250
Patent Applications: 12,041
Federal Litigations: 954
Federal District Court Decisions: 537
State Court Decisions: 150
Federal Appellate Court Decisions: 50

Nvidia: (31 years and running)

Patents Granted: 4,536
Patent Applications: 1,522
Federal Litigations: 266
Federal District Court Decisions: 284
State Court Decisions: 18
Federal Appellate Court Decisions: 7

AMD: (54 years and running)

Patents Granted: 12,230
Patent Applications: 2,101
Federal Litigations: 192
Federal District Court Decisions: 249
State Court Decisions: 15
Federal Appellate Court Decisions: 4

Xilinx: 40 years and now merged with AMD but still filing new patents, etc.

Patents Granted: 4,753
Patent Applications: 627
Federal Litigations: 87
Federal District Court Decisions: 64
State Court Decisions: 19
Federal Appellate Court Decisions: 16

Rebuilding Giant now 3 companies: GE Aerospace, GE HealthCare Technologies, GE Vernova

General Electric: (131 years ago and running)

Patents Granted: 51,734
Patent Applications: 15,494
Federal Litigations: 43,746
Federal District Court Decisions: 2,540
State Court Decisions: 372
Federal Appellate Court Decisions: 33

American, Japanese Auto Giants of Old and New:

Ford Motors: (120 years ago and running)

Patents Granted: 6,147
Patent Applications: 564
Federal Litigations: 12,119
Federal District Court Decisions: 2,500
State Court Decisions: 1,622
Federal Appellate Court Decisions: 97

General Motors: (115 years ago and running)

Patents Granted: 11,259
Patent Applications: 700
Federal Litigations: 10,047
Federal District Court Decisions: 1,176
State Court Decisions: 1,044
Federal Appellate Court Decisions: 41

Honda: (75 years ago and running)

Patents Granted: 30,802
Patent Applications: 12,277
Federal Litigations: 2,596
Federal District Court Decisions: 865
State Court Decisions: 199
Federal Appellate Court Decisions: 13

Toyota: (86 years ago and running)

Patents Granted: 42,913
Patent Applications: 35,018
Federal Litigations: 3,596
Federal District Court Decisions: 922
State Court Decisions: 475
Federal Appellate Court Decisions: 33

Tesla: (20 years ago and running)

Patents Granted: 284
Patent Applications: 291
Federal Litigations: 111
Federal District Court Decisions: 54
State Court Decisions: 19
Federal Appellate Court Decisions: 2

Social Networks:

Facebook Properties: (20 years ago and running)

Patents Granted: 7,157
Patent Applications: 748
Federal Litigations: 1,301
Federal District Court Decisions: 1501
State Court Decisions: 234
Federal Appellate Court Decisions: 62


If you read cursory commentaries, the world of innovation is all Nvidia, Google, Tesla and everyone else in their competitor index is nothing.

It's quite the opposite. Google has amassed a lot of patents for 28 years, but more importantly it outpaces its competitors in failures on a seemingly unprecedented level.

Facebook is king of Social Media because it bought out its competition and most of their innovations are in the Cloud and those competitor products that w/o today Facebook would have become MySpace.

For 31 years in existence after leaving AMD, Nvidia founder and company has very little in the way of real IP.

Its main competitors, Intel and especially AMD, have amassed war chests of patent IP and growing more rapidly, especially AMD with its well positioned deep and broad portfolio. Don't count Intel out it will join the party again. How impactful will be up to a future board and CEO three or four down the line.

Tesla fans claim Toyota, Honda, etc., are all washed up. They haven't a clue. Tesla also happens to have very little IP and that will come to bite them hard in the long run. So much for all their innovations. If they had it, it would be in Patents from day one. Apple has hundreds of awarded patents on Project Titan and they haven't even released an EV. But they are amassing the IP to do so at a later date, and also license out that IP as well.

IBM is KING of IP. It's innovations are astounding, but most folks don't know them.

In case anyone is keeping track, Android 1.0 was released in 2008 and it was primarily an interface to Google Cloud Services. From day one Google has been developing products to feed their advertising money making systems.

To get an idea of how far Apple is expanding their IP just this 2022 patent application itself could be used in various product and future products:

U.S. Patent Application for DECOUPLED CONTROL OF REFRIGERANT CLIMATE CONTROL SYSTEMS Patent Application (Application #20240102678 issued March 28, 2024) - Justia Patents Search

Described herein are techniques for optimizing operation of a refrigerant climate control system using an energy management device. In an example process, the energy management device may receive an energy optimization signal that describes a characteristic associated with an electrical energy...
patents.justia.com patents.justia.com

DECOUPLED CONTROL OF REFRIGERANT CLIMATE CONTROL SYSTEMS​

Sep 22, 2022 - Apple
Described herein are techniques for optimizing operation of a refrigerant climate control system using an energy management device. In an example process, the energy management device may receive an energy optimization signal that describes a characteristic associated with an electrical energy source. The process may also include the energy management device generating a control signal for a refrigerant climate control system to use the electrical energy source based at least in part on the characteristic of the energy optimization signal. The process may also include the energy management device providing the control signal to a controller of the refrigerant climate control system.
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Apple has far broader plans for the future than people here give them credit.

From the US Patent Search PDF Version: https://ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/20240102678

These types of patent directions are exactly what Steve addressed even twenty years before Steve passed at Apple. He highlighted stuff like this in the future but first we had to save the company. Tim is doing very well to keep such long aspirations alive, even if many of you think he should retire.
 
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Apple really did an amazing job making everyone believe they are the only ones trustworthy with user data online and offline when at the end of the day, they are just another vendor in a big market and their only true obligation is towards their shareholders to keep growing and making more money.

I am personally way more concerned what governments etc. know about me using tools like Pegasus in secret. This is what intransparency (is that a real word in English?) actually looks like. Not Google.
 
Thus is huge. Absence of find my was probably biggest obstacle for me to try android phones. Does this find my android enable something like find my friend?
 
trip1ex said:
LIke Google doesn't know where I am 24/7. Apple probably too.
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Quoting Daring Fireball (https://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/10/04/schmidt-creepy):

Google CEO Eric Schmidt, in an interview with Atlantic editor James Bennet: “Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it,” he said. Google implants, he added, probably crosses that line.

At the same time, Schmidt envisions a future where we embrace a larger role for machines and technology. “With your permission you give us more information about you, about your friends, and we can improve the quality of our searches,” he said. “We don’t need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.”
 
lewchenko said:
Sounds like air tags are completely useless now for certain use cases. Eg. Putting one in your car/other valuable item incase it gets stolen. Now it will alert the thieves !
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That's good. The thieves will realize they can't safely and quitely steal the car. They will be paranoid and leave your stuff where they are
 
It'd be best if the standard applied to the actual find my network itself, so everyone gets the benefit of a larger, more comprehensive network, but I suppose there are business reasons not to do that.
 
MacAddict1978 said:
HAHAHA. What are you smoking? Literally every "IOS" innovation Apple has produced since the iPhone 3G was copied from Google (and implemented years later). Google is like literally Apple's best R&D member. Ther rare occasion Google borrows an idea is fine with me.... Apple still in their debt.
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You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Not even a little bit! 🤦‍♂️🙄
 
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