Google to Launch Android Find My Network After Apple Adds Third-Party Tracker Alerts to iPhone

[Shirasaki]

Surprised at why this got dislikes, it’s a nice and right thought.

Because google is involved, and that’s where those dislikes are for.

 

[svish]

Good to know about this. Should benefit a lot of people.

 

[MuppetGate]

Because google is involved, and that’s where those dislikes are for.

In that case, when people find out that Apple pays Google to prioritise their search engine, they’ll absolutely lose it.

 

[ignatius345]

Are people this bad at keeping track of their stuff? The Find My stuff world seems like an unnecessarily large industry.

I haven't found a lot of uses for these, personally -- but I can definitely see the use case for people whose lives are more complicated than my own.

 

[wbeasley]

They should've never made these. I know exactly 0 people who have bought one, but several who have found them in their bags after a night out, had something gifted to them that had one somehow hidden inside, etc.

wasnt the advice "dont accept gifts from strangers"?

 

[Shirasaki]

In that case, when people find out that Apple pays Google to prioritise their search engine, they’ll absolutely lose it.

Such is the world of Apple fans. 🤷‍♀️

 

[mrgrdn]

I haven't found a lot of uses for these, personally -- but I can definitely see the use case for people whose lives are more complicated than my own.

complicated = having kids

 

[CarAnalogy]

Shows even a little bit of working together can bring significant progress. Just a good faith effort between competitors to bring all clients a more qualified user experience.

I was with you until the words "good faith." I don't think either company is doing this for any reasons other than their own. In Apple's case they have been forced to. In Google's case it's clearly to their advantage.

 

[steve123]

Ever had your luggage stolen? A bike stolen? It's about theft prevention more than anything else.

Anti tracking has nerfed anti theft.

Good for you! Doesn't change the fact that a lot of people, both in my life and not, the overwhelming majority of whom being women, are victims to being tracked with them and this wasn't an issue to such extent before these got put out. It was not a ready product, no matter how you look at it. Apple wanted Android users to download an app to check whether an Airtag is following them.

Glad they are making progress about this, but they could have thought about all of this before doxxing the homes of people.

The product has nefarious use case as you have pointed out but the solution is not to make the device useless. Rather, Apple should work proactively with regulators and law enforcement from the get go to ensure there is significant legal and financial consequence for people who misuse them.

So what's the plan if someone steals an item that the owner has an AirTag hidden in, and when they are alerted to it traveling with them, they disable it?

Are Apple & Google going to keep track of the user who disables these devices in case the device was stolen?

Indeed.

Apple is the one causing the doxing.

It doesn’t matter if I don’t use them it is more about a random stalker using them and planting the trackers on someone. Apple’s network is just to good and make it way to easy to track someone with some poor safety features. It needs some massive changes as air tags were never meant to protect stolen items.

Disabled speaker should mean auto device shut down. I should be at any moment see how many trackers my phone sees and big time if I suspect being followed and be able to disable them.

Apple is not causing the doxing, the perpetrator is the person who misuses them. Apple should be prepared to kick someone out of their eco system entirely for misusing their device to stalk someone. It is financially advantageous for them to nerf the product instead, which is what they did.

 

[1129846]

Apple is not causing the doxing, the perpetrator is the person who misuses them. Apple should be prepared to kick someone out of their eco system entirely for misusing their device to stalk someone. It is financially advantageous for them to nerf the product instead, which is what they did.

I think a better way is Apple is allowing the Doxing to happen and makes it way to easy to allow. Hence why they need the massive updates to airtags and airtag system to prevent it from happening. There are bad actors out there and Apples needs to do more to protect people from them.

That why you need to things like speaker broken airtag auto shuts down, stops updating location and so on along with a way that someone can disable any tracker by a quick scan and the trackers would not update again until the owner phone sees their own tracker.

It is simply a case Apple item is very good at what it does and has some very real safety concerns that Apple has not done remotely enough to prevent.

 

[mjs916]

No, they are useless for that. The tags alert the thief and he finds and removes the Airtag. Only the most casual and ignorant thief would not know about Airtags.

It is the anti-tracking feature that makes them useless as an anti-theft device.

They buy you a little bit of time and the potential direction of travel which are both better than nothing.

If out of range from the owner for long enough it will then notify them but until then you have time to put it into Lost Mode. So I wouldn’t call it “useless”, but it requires some vigilance on your part.