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This is a great feature. Wasn't there prior discussion something/somewhere, some leak, about Apple having this baked into ios 14.5? If that's the case, I give Samsung credit for implementing others' great ideas.
 
these trackers only work when tag and monitoring device are feets apart from each other. how would this help track a car?... the only use would be to know if the car leaves/arrives a certain location.... this is thing is only useful to track stuff inside a house/office.
If a driver or passenger of the car has an iphone. Or if the car is near another car with occupants who have an iphone. Bluetooth range is at least 15 feet.
 
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This is a great feature. Wasn't there prior discussion something/somewhere, some leak, about Apple having this baked into ios 14.5? If that's the case, I give Samsung credit for implementing others' great ideas.
In your rush to humble-bash Samsung you overlooked that the link to the previous article is in this article.
 
On the one hand, this seems like a good idea.

On the other hand... if I'm a stalker, how hard is it for me to buy a little devices with GPS and a cellular antenna that I can place in your bag or car to track you with? Even if I can't just buy such a thing on Amazon (I'd guess I can), I could buy the parts off of Adafruit or whatever and build it in less than a night for under $40... the knowledge needed to build this is... not much. My brother in law who barely passed high school, didn't go to college, but plays with radios and solders - I'm pretty sure he could scrap this together... I don't think it takes much sophistication.
 
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On the one hand, this seems like a good idea.

On the other hand... if I'm a stalker, how hard is it for me to buy a little devices with GPS and a cellular antenna that I can place in your bag or car to track you with? Even if I can't just buy such a thing on Amazon (I'd guess I can), I could buy the parts off of Adafruit or whatever and build it in less than a night for under $40... the knowledge needed to build this is... not much. My brother in law who barely passed high school, didn't go to college, but plays with radios and solders - I'm pretty sure he could scrap this together... I don't think it takes much sophistication.
Throwing a tag into someone's car is orders of magnitude simper than the techniques you described. That's the issue Apple is addressing with this notification feature. Sort of like the difference between a crime of opportunity vs a premeditated criminal mastermind.
 
I have to agree with other posters in this thread about this feature making it useless to track stolen items. If a thief steals my bag, for example, which has a tracker in it, after some time the thief's phone will notify them that a tracker is moving with them. Then the thief can go "oh ****" and find the tracker and toss it.

How does this not completely destroy one of the main use cases of these trackers?
 
I have to agree with other posters in this thread about this feature making it useless to track stolen items. If a thief steals my bag, for example, which has a tracker in it, after some time the thief's phone will notify them that a tracker is moving with them. Then the thief can go "oh ****" and find the tracker and toss it.

How does this not completely destroy one of the main use cases of these trackers?
It would be funny to see the notifications a career thief will get. "You are currently being tracked by 46 unknown devices".
 
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Am I missing something in the article, or does Samsung’s version require you to activate the scan manually, rather than it being a passive check like with Apple’s version? So you can check if you’re being stalked, if for some reason you already think you are? OK...

Also yeah, I’m with @zorinlynx et al - notifying a thief that an item they’ve stolen is being tracked, or disturbing a train full of passengers by telling them about all the dozens of trackers in the same carriage as them, seems stupid. Be interesting to see if Apple clarify this in the stream today.
 
The paranoia seems overblown. I don’t know about Samsung‘s thing and AirTags are yet to arrive, but I highly doubt they are gonna use cellular, otherwise it would be a total battery hog.

Meaning, I don’t think you can stick these on a car or slip into someone’s bag and track them through the city. You probably need to be within Bluetooth range or something for the Tags to work.

But maybe I’m wrong, all will be clear in a couple of hours presumably.
The whole point is that FindMy devices are tracked by other iOS/iPadOS/macOS users, you don't need to be in range yourself, that would defeat the purpose of the whole system.
 
Yes... trackers are linked to an iCloud account. If there’s a tracker moving with you that’s not on your account you’ll be notified. If it’s a tracker owned by the person next to you, you just turn off the notifications sent to you for that tracker.
How do you know it's the person next to you...and not a tracker stuck in your bag by somebody else? just being devil's advocate here
 
The whole point is that FindMy devices are tracked by other iOS/iPadOS/macOS users, you don't need to be in range yourself, that would defeat the purpose of the whole system.
My TV remote answering “I’m under the sofa cushion”. Seriously, just yesterday I forgot where I left my phone so I shouted “Hey Siri where are you” and a voice replied “I’m here”. From under the sofa cushion:)
 
How do you know it's the person next to you...and not a tracker stuck in your bag by somebody else? just being devil's advocate here
Practically, when you get a warning, at some point you leave say the train and stop for a few seconds. If the tracker leaves then it was in the person next to you - or your bag has been stolen :)
 
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You mean like how Apple is stealing the idea of tags themselves fom Tile? The blinders are blinding.
However is that truly stealing? Yes, once somebody comes up with the idea for something, there will always be somebody else doing a variation on the theme. the build a better mouse trap? I will say that copying the code is stealing though.
 
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Practically, when you get a warning, at some point you leave say the train and stop for a few seconds. If the tracker leaves then it was in the person next to you - or your bag has been stolen :)
Very true and if you're paranoid, you can get up and let's say go the a different car of the train and see if its gone.
 
I would assume that if a person sitting next to you on the bus/train, or in their own car next to you on the road, has their own iPhone and AirTag on them their AirTag will stay paired to their phone and never bother making contact with anyone else's phone. So you will never get notified of that AirTag travelling along with you.

I would think that the AirTags never reach out to other devices unless they lose contact with the iPhone they are primarily tied to. So once that other person gets off the bus/train etc. after a certain amount of time their AirTag will reach out for other nearby iPhones and try reporting their location thru them. This is when you would get the notification that a nearby AirTag is reporting your location and travelling with you.

As the others have pointed out though, how does this work with stolen items? If you are immediately notified that an AirTag is with you as soon as it connects isn't that going to just warn thieves? Maybe the AirTags makes contact with the server first to check if it has been reported as lost first before notifying the iPhones nearby? But if that is how it worked then wouldn't stalkers just report the AirTag as lost so it doesn't notify people nearby? It will be interesting to see how this works in real world scenarios. Hopefully Apple can spend some time covering it in the presentation today.
 
Now I know the message I get every time my plane/train/bus starts movement. :)

If I put this tracker to the bicycle and it be stolen , the criminal would know that my bicycle has the tracker. Smart :)
 
There is a huge potential for misuse of AirTags. Controlling husbands following their partners every move is just one of many scary scenarios.
 
I mean if you’re going to steal apples products you might as well also steal all their known features you forgot to add first
Pretty difficult to steal a product that doesn't exist, right? I mean, following your logic Tesla ripped off the "Apple Car" and Oculus ripped off the "Apple <insert vr headset name here>."

Let's go the other way as well. Apple stole the idea of a cell phone from Motorola, The idea of a processor was lifted from Intel, etc. etc. etc.

And of course, who can forget the aptly titled "AirPower Clone" Charging mat - yet another product that this website was happy to pile onto - even though Apple wasn't able to release it.

You're welcome to hate Samsung or any other company that doesn't have a fruit logo - but c'mon man, take those rose colored goggles off once in a while.
 
The paranoia seems overblown. I don’t know about Samsung‘s thing and AirTags are yet to arrive, but I highly doubt they are gonna use cellular, otherwise it would be a total battery hog.

Meaning, I don’t think you can stick these on a car or slip into someone’s bag and track them through the city. You probably need to be within Bluetooth range or something for the Tags to work.

But maybe I’m wrong, all will be clear in a couple of hours presumably.
The tag slipped into your car is within BT range from your phone. Your phone will do the tracking.
 
However is that truly stealing? Yes, once somebody comes up with the idea for something, there will always be somebody else doing a variation on the theme. the build a better mouse trap? I will say that copying the code is stealing though.
That's essentially the point I was making. Everyone is using everyone else's ideas at this point. It's hard to have a truly unique idea with so many smart people working on so many things.
 
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