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Wouldn't be surprised if there just held back to launch 3rd party find my integration or they waited to get more U1 iphones into peoples hands.
 
Tile isn’t going anywhere…neither is FB…neither is Spotify…
And for some people nor should they. If you like them, then that 's fine. Not every company/product will appeal to all people. Plus, if Tile went away that would place more scrutiny on Apple claiming that they are a monopoly.
 
Good point - a battery sitting in a warehouse for some time isn't good is it.
They are packaged with a plastic strip under the battery that you pull out to setup so the battery is unused.

It’s also possible the devices aren’t that old but the packaging and been printed and produced already.

The box for mine was 03/2021. The paper inside was 2020
 
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Funny yeah they Musta had all the the AirTag accessory things at another warehouse I thought I got my whole order it now I only got the AirTag holders boo-hoo even though they show both being shipped by UPS this one came by another shipper I've never heard of very strange.
They kept them next to those 2018 homepods.
 
AirTags had to await the complete revamp of Bluetooth across Apple's product lines (iOS, iPadOS, macOS, AirPods Pro) which just rolled out this week.
 
but I wouldn’t be surprised if they waited for more U1 capable devices to be out there
I would be very surprised, because that's the opposite of how Apple usually operates: They like to ship nice integrations that only work if each device involved is the latest generation. It drives upgrade.
 
I assume they were taken to court and had to build third party tracking into Find My.

That makes zero sense: how would they be taken to court for a product no-one knew about? And how would we not know about the court case?
It's more logical they were afraid to be taken to court and decided to open up the Find My network before releasing the Airtags. That's what possibly caused the delay.
 
I believe, Apple waited for U1 chips to get ready (for precision finding). By the time it was ready, pandemic struck and people are at home and no use to launch it. Moreover, they want to open up the Find My program to avoid litigations.
 
They probably delayed until they could come up with a comprehensive response to criticism of unwanted tracking
 
Proof apple delayed these air tags because of covid, not because they were working to get everything right the first time.
 
I'm getting tired of the anti-trust meme. Introducing a product that competes with other products is not anti-competitive behavior. Having a manufacturer/platform-exclusive feature is not anti-competitive (patents are a legal, limited-time monopoly intended to stimulate innovation). Even being one of the world's biggest companies and introducing a new product is not anti-competitive. It's how you behave "on the playing field" that becomes potentially anti-competitive. And a key test of anti-competitive behavior is whether it hurts consumers (higher prices, lack of choice, etc.). Businesses get hurt on the competitive playing field all the time - that's supposed to be the nature of the free market/competition. Behavior becomes anti-competitive when it prevents the free market from functioning in a normal manner.

And even if Apple's behavior turned out to be anti-competitive, tracking tags are such a small market segment that the legal bills would be higher than the fines imposed (if found guilty). The chances that Apple delayed AirTags out of fear of anti-trust complaints seems very unlikely to me. Everything Apple does today triggers complaints from someone. If they feared complaints they may as well liquidate the company and go home.

Tile is screaming "anti-trust" because it's to their advantage to do so. They get lots of free publicity (every government hearing in every country), some Apple-hater sympathy purchases, and may even get lucky and have some legislation passed to their benefit.
 
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My gut tells me, they took so long because they are being careful with this one. With Tile's pre-release complaints, I bet they are looking deeply to see what they can legally get away with, without hurting their other anti-trust/anti-competitive lawsuits.
 
Doesn't seem too surprising given that for all of 2020 much of the world was on Lock-down. Consumers wouldn't have much need for geo-tracking tags for their stuff if they're rarely leaving the house.
 
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