Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Tile CEO: 'We Welcome Competition From Apple, But We Think It Needs to Be Fair'
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I was an early adopter of Tiles. I liked the concept but not the implementation. They just didn't work well enough and were poor value for money. I just stopped using them when the non-reusable batteries ran out. The later iterations of replaceable batteries with a subscription didn't improve matters. AirTags are what Tile should have been from the beginning.
Not exactly. Spatial Audio requires motion detectors in the headphones and a communication method with the device playing the audio to accurately know with low latency, the location and orientation of the headphones in relation to the device. Other companies are free to use Apple’s Spatial Audio API to tell suitably equipped AirPods to “play this audio using Spatial Audio”, but they are not free to build Apple’s motion detection technology into their headphones.
BTW, I realized after typing that I should have typed H1. I apologize for this obvious mistake!! H1 and the motion detectors is what enables this feature in Apple’s AirPods Pro and AirPods Max. Unless Apple licenses this chip (or the underlying technology) to third parties, they won’t be able to make headphones that play Apple’s Spatial Audio. They can support some other technology that replicates Spatial Audio, of course, but not Apple’s method.
They don't have all the same advantages. U1 is only for Apple to use. That's a huge deal you're not mentioning here.
I don't think consumers win if what Apple does destroys competition. Everyone here says "Well this wouldn't be an issue if Tile innovated more", but no one actually has suggestions on what they could have done better based on the software/hardware Apple allowed them to have access to. Apple products have integration that no other competing product could ever.
Tile have a majority of market, namely Android, for themselves which AirTag doesn't work for. They're having a big advantage over Apple. Who is stopping them innovating?
I guess I must be dumb. I don't understand where the problem is with a company, that put in all the time, effort, and capital to create a successful platform that hundreds of millions of people choose, to have some kind of advantage on their own platform?
Apple’s been destroying competition ever since the iPod. Now, we have the iPhone. If that’s what destroying competition looks like, then I can’t say I hate it.
The ONLY people who know what Tile could have done better is Tile. I’m sure some of them get paid millions of dollars to know “what to do”. I mean, no one in these forums told Apple to release the iPad (at the time, most would have been FAR happier with a macOS tablet). But, here we are with a Tile that isn’t innovating and an Apple that sells more iPads than HP does laptops.
Yeah you still don't get it. People opted in to Find My iPhone. The thing they've been using for 10 years. Period. Anything else that came along with it was squeezed in by Apple under false pretenses. Apple knows exactly what they're doing. They get people to volunteer themselves for the Find My network tracking system by getting them to enable Find My iPhone.
It's simple. If another small company came along trying to disrupt the industry and introduce competition with a better option, no one would bat an eye, and everyone would applaud. But they can't, and won't, because no small company can do what Apple did. Apple instead abuses its market position to eliminate whole companies, if not entire categories of business. You might think they have the right to do that. But they don't, because that's what anti-competitive laws are all about. By leveraging the install base of iOS devices with the forced opt-in Find My network, and making it free (and only free) to all...they effectively end Tile, and end the entire idea of paid services to track items. You might say, "Good!". The law does not. Just because you like the outcome of this anti-competitive move by Apple, does not mean everyone does, and does not mean you'll like the next one. The laws exist for a reason.
And by 'volunteering', what is the personal cost? How does this affect the person whose iPhone is being used to track an AirTag?
AirTags don't work on Android. Android has a bigger marketshare. If tile can't swing it on Android, then they must not be doing good enough.
How do personalized ads affect the person? Hint: they don't. You still need to give explicit permission.
Apple was a small company on the verge of evaporating at one point. They had to FIRST survive impending doom and then innovate like heck. Lucky for them (or maybe they have some magical staff in the janitor’s closet?), they were able to create a hit product in the iPod. I mean, they could have realistically milked that forEVER. However, someone went back into that janitor’s closet, touched the staff and PING! 😜 out comes the iPhone.
Apparently, Apple, since they’re magical and no company can do what they do, needs to be forced to lend their magical staff to other companies. I hear the closet it’s kept in now is REALLY snazzy.
They lost because they were dinosaurs that didn’t adapt to modern times. Android and iOS do. So if there’s some great opportunity to come up and steal the market from them, why hasn’t anybody done it in the past 13 years? Hmmm….
because nobody wants to use a crappy device that’s not compatible with anything that’s unfamiliar and doesn’t work outside their walled garden. If you’re in apples, you really gonna give up your Apple Watch, AirPods, AirPods max, Apple services just to try a new phone? Yeah no.
maybe you’re just trying to be hopeful, but it comes off as profoundly naive
Exactly this! Apple is definitely smart and know what they are doing when they say they are “open to the competition”. So many people here are defending a monopoly of a company that constantly takes out smaller companies.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers had a team that couldn’t be beat. As a result, this year, I don’t think the Houston Texans have a chance to win the Superbowl. So, I think the Houston Texans should be able to use the Tampa Bay Buccaneers team for their games. I mean, it’s anti-competitive for the Buccs to have the best team in the league.
Just after Apple announced its AirTags, Tile CEO CJ Prober relayed his concerns about competing with Apple in the tracking space, and said that Tile would ask Congress to investigate Apple's business practices specific to Find My and item trackers.
Prober this week did an interview with Bloomberg, where he further expanded on Tile's complaints about Apple and why he feels that Tile is disadvantaged on Apple's platform. Prober said that while Tile "welcomes competition," he doesn't feel that Apple is being fair.Prober claims that when Apple "launched" Find My in 2019, there were changes to iOS that made it harder for Tile to operate. Apple did release a unified Find My app in 2019, but has long had Find My iPhone and Find My Mac apps for devices.Prober is talking about changes that Apple made to location services permissions. For privacy purposes, Apple stopped making it easy for apps to get permanent access to a user's location. Apps in iOS 13 were not initially allowed to present an "Always Allow" option when requesting location access, and the feature had to be enabled in the Settings app. Apple also started sending regular reminders to customers letting them know their location was being used.
Tile was not happy with these privacy changes and that privacy tweak set Tile against Apple, with Tile in 2019 calling on Congress to "level the playing field."
Prober said that Apple has now launched a Tile competitor that has access to platform capabilities that Tile cannot access, referencing seamless activation and Ultra Wideband technology.Apple has, in fact, launched the Find My network that gives third-party accessories some of the same access that AirTags have, and Find My network accessories will be able to access the U1 chip in the iPhone 11 and 12 models much like the AirTags, but Tile won't be able to use the Find My network unless it abandons its own app and infrastructure, which it is likely unwilling to do.
Prober said that Tile has been "seeking to access" the U1 chip since its introduction in the iPhone, and has been denied.
It's too early to tell whether Tile's sales will be impacted by AirTag, but Prober says that Tile is "well-positioned" with a "super differentiated product" that's available across platform and in many form factors. He suggested Tile has several benefits over AirTags.According to Prober, Apple could take the advantages that it has on its platform and make them available to everyone for a more level competitive playing field. He called for legislation to allow for innovation and competition. "We should be competing fairly and no excessive taxes on developers," he said.
Prober's full interview can be watched over at Bloomberg.
Article Link: Tile CEO: 'We Welcome Competition From Apple, But We Think It Needs to Be Fair'
STOP CRYING, YOU KNEW DAMN WELL THAT THIS DAY WAS COMING!!
Tile.com's leadership was presented with very favorable buyout terms from Apple numerous times (please do not ask me how I know; I will not reveal that, but let's just say I was 'there'), but was never taken seriously by Tile.
Personally, I think you're (company's leadership) is insane; and for them to orchestrate a fight with Apple now that they specifically intend to prohibit some of the upcoming capabilities of Apple's new AirTags is asinine.
AirTags are MUCH BETTER than Tile, and to expect Apple's hand to be forced to not deliver all upcoming features of this particular new product, which I'll add many people like me have paid hundreds of dollars for, is unfair and unjust!!!!
If you can't see the difference between a personalized ad that is put on your screen in front of you, and your phone being used in the background to send a location of another device, of which you will never even know happened, I don't know what to tell you.
Yeah. One you personally approve of and one you don't. That's the difference.
Yes I see what you're saying. With the H1 chip, nobody is being given access to it from what I gather, so no one competing company is at an advantage over another. You can of course develop proprietary products and services that aren't open for development. Having unique selling points like this is why Apple has become the company they are today.
What you can't do is allow multiple companies can access your U1 chip because they don't have alternative services available, but deny access to the U1 chip to companies that do have alternative services available. I suppose it would be like Apple allowing a new company to officially sell products running macOS or iOS, but restricting companies like Dell or Samsung from offering the same. It's anti-competitive.
The people that are that against using their iPhone for this service will research and find out how to turn this switch off. The rest don't care enough to bother.
Last edited:
THIS is why AirTags are huge; the functionality is built into and enabled on every iPhone from the factory. Now Tile has been given an opportunity to join that same network or be relegated into obscurity with their subscription model. The Tile app is not installed on enough phones to compete, critical mass has always eluded them. Perhaps Tile should have worked harder to get OS integrated support with Android and/or iOS in the beginning.
People can complain about Apple all they want, but this move is analogous to car manufacturers integrating things which were only available through 3rd parties previously such as GPS, backup cameras, USB Charging ports, etc. It's a risk you shoulder when marketing a product that depends on a parent product not integrating that functionality themselves.
Would you have been the guy saying, “Nokia’s been around forever, no one has come up to steal market share from them and never will!” or “No one has taken down IBM PC’s, they’re bound to be a major player in the PC space forever” or “Linux isn’t and never will be the OS that mission critical servers run on, Microsoft is just far too entrenched!” It’s never a bad bet to wager that “the technology leader will change”.
What if you’re NOT into Apple’s offerings? What if you prefer the number 1 cell phone OS in the US and the world? For any company interested in THAT market, the proof is out there that the majority of people with cell phones don’t want, can’t afford or would just rather not use Apple. So, you say that no company now or in the future will ever be able to take advantage of that MASSIVE market outside the Apple ecosystem?