Apple Introduces AirTag
I thought one of the big use cases for this was to track stolen items, like a backpack or maybe even a bicycle.
But the "anti-stalking" feature will notify someone if an AirTag they don't own appears to be traveling with them.
Does this render it useless for anti-theft, then? Since it will just notify a thief that the bike they just stole is being tracked, and they can look for the AirTag and throw it in the nearest trash can?
Not criticizing Apple here -- anti-stalking is super-important -- but just looking for clarification if this will help you find lost items, but not stolen ones.
A week ago my wife dropped her Iphone from a ski lift, and couldn't find it afterwards. I went to try and find it, from home she used Find my phone to get a picture of the location, and had it play sounds when I was nearby. I found it under a foot of snow, first try. This has been around for a while now but it was the first time I saw it first hand, I was blown away.
This tag has an U1 chip using Ultra Wide Band (UWB) which means that iPhones 11 and above also equipped with those chips will be able to locate those tags from 80m away with a +/-30cm accuracy. U1 UWB uses short pulses at 6.24GHz and 8.2GHz and positioning is done by combining time of flight (ToF) and angle of arrival (AoA).
The "commercial" they used to introduce this during the event was hilarious and awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbApA2JLZ_c
Once I started using Tile it became impossible for me to remember where I put my keys. There just wasn't any pressure to stay organized since the beeping would always save me. But whenever the battery was out or the Bluetooth wasn't connecting oh boy.
Same kind of thing happened with GPS. I used to pay more attention to maps and really learned streets but now I just expect the phone to solve everything for me. I'm lost without it and I don't like that.
If I was evil and stuck these to ex-girlfriend/boyfriend car or something, illegal?
Edit: Downvoters. I am not doing this obviously. Am asking as this is the clear abuse I see. Tracking people without permission.
I see this as being a weird legal thing we hear about down the road.
This is truly revolutionary for pet owners. All existing solutions I know of have at least one fault-intolerant property that makes them useless for the lost-pet use case (battery / size / unreliable connection coverage / etc.)
If I understand correctly Apple tags solve all of these at once.
I am so happy to finally rid myself of all Tile devices after this announcement. Tile has been one of the worst companies I’ve ever dealt with when it comes to dark patterns. Their app is one of the few I’d describe as having UI that’s actively hostile toward the customer.
I'm pleasantly surprised these have user-replaceable standard button batteries, definitely wasn't expecting that.
Would have been nice to have an attachment hole on the device itself, rather than requiring you purchase accessories to attach to a set of keys, for example.
This is directly competing with Tile[0] which you can buy 2 for 39.99.
I guess the integration with Find My app would be pretty convenient but probably not worth the price difference?
I've been thinking about a solution that would let me find a 4-10 year old child that gets lost in a big city crowd. Like a bracelet or something. Is the AirTag truly first or best in class?
I have been using Tile for more than 2 years and I think its time to switch and try out AirTag. I had some issues with Tile but has worked OK so far. Looking at the pictures it does look about the same size, maybe a bit smaller. I do like lot of app features. And as a Iphone user it will be good integration. Also, user replaceable battery is huge plus. Looking forward to checking it out.
While I appreciate the anti stalking feature I'm not sure it would be compatible with a common use case: suppose I attach one to my backpack because I want to be able to track it in case I loose it. Fine. But... at this point I either always bring the backpack with me whenever I leaver my home or it will start buzzing as soon as I'm far away.
WoZ[1] realized.
Wasn’t wheels of Zeus a similar idea way back when, just never executed?
What I need is the inverse of this -- my wife is forever losing her phone around the house, and I need a button on the wall that you can press to activate "find my phone" mode and play a beep on it.
EDIT: Thank you for all the suggestions!
I'm aware that this is possible from another iPhone or iWatch or iPad -- this is the current workflow. Use my phone or take the ipad away from the kids to play the beep. Is a button on the wall too much to ask for?
I've actually experimented with the iCloud API to try to get this functionality to work, but it's not a supported API so I run into the uncrossable chasm of "put your password in this python file and voila!".
These airtags have a couple of nice features: AR finder and the ability for anyone to adopt the protocol in their bluetooth stack. But I already have a bunch of tiles so I'd have to use both apps and know which one to use.
The big benefit is there are more people with iPhones than there are people with iPhones+android who are running the tile app.
Tile also has two useful form factors: a wallet-sized flat one and a tiny button for things like TV remotes.
If Tile didn't have replaceable batteries this would be a bigger threat (if you have to replace your tag, there's an opportunity to switch vendors).
Still, I do expect them to crush tile in the long run. Then again I've been surprised Tile has made it this far at all, so they might figure it out.
> If AirTag is separated from its owner and out of Bluetooth range, the Find My network can help track it down. The Find My network is approaching a billion Apple devices and can detect Bluetooth signals from a lost AirTag and relay the location back to its owner, all in the background, anonymously and privately.
I had no idea that's how "Find My Phone" worked. I guess I hadn't thought about it.
I wonder what the privacy implications are, how do they (or do they) stop the "Find My network" from tracking units any time all the time?
Wait, do I understand correctly that my phone is being abused as part of a global botnet for Apple?
How do I disable my iPhone being using to relay data?
There are about 100,000,000 pets in the US.
Apple just printed a $B business by figuring out how to monetize pets.
Anyone know of an Android compatible alternative that isn't Tile?
Every Tile device we've had has broken within 3 months. Normally literally falling to pieces. Have been through 10 of them. Would be fine if they were cheap, but they're really not...
Let's hope Apple raises standards / increases competition with this release!
I wonder if I can put this on my dog as an activity tracker.
My cat disappeared for 16 hours today, had no idea where he was. He has a heart issue so I was worried he went off and died. Would I be able to use AirTags to see where he was throughout the day or not? Obviously I could see where he is right now, but could I see where he roamed off to through the course of the day?
I know that others have mentioned that no location data is stored on the device, but what if I want to use it to see lat/long data points over time, like a time series device, is this possible?
Crazy to think my cat's privacy is being proactively protected by Apple haha
Does anyone know if this works in 3D? Could it be used to find in which floor a car was parked, for example?
Without looking deep at the technology part I was wondering if this could be used as an alternative for avalanche transceivers in backcountry skiing. Avalanche transceivers use radio signals to find each other in case of an avalanche. They are very high priced and unfortunately a lot of people then decide to not use one. Having a cheap and reliable version using a phone could save lifes. I'm very curious to see if this is feasible
Customers can personalize AirTag with free engraving, including text and a selection of 31 emoji, when purchasing them. That's a nice touch.
Very cool though I hope they make it clear that it's not worth going after items, even expensive items yourself if they were stolen rather than misplaced. Even if the police won't do anything about it and you know where the items are. In the bay area, they won't for instance. Just please don't go after it yourself. It will get people killed.
Hacky solution that works by tunneling telemetry data over open wifi links: http://www.phreakmonkey.com/2016/08/towl-telemetry-over-oppo...
At least you have to give Apple credit for using a simple standard CR2032 battery this time and not "inventing" some non-standard format such as 19 mm. Or even creating tad larger cell with an integrated id-chip that validates that the battery is manufactured by Apple.
Can somebody please help me parse the last sentence in the "Privacy" paragraph here? I'm honestly confused by the "or location of any device that helped find it". All I want to know is if a LEA could subpoena Apple for the location of any/all of my AirTags, and I can't tell if this is talking about the tags themselves or about the device that initiates a Find action for a Tag:
"AirTag is designed from the ground up to keep location data private and secure. No location data or location history is physically stored inside AirTag. Communication with the Find My network is end-to-end encrypted so that only the owner of a device has access to its location data, and no one, including Apple, knows the identity or location of any device that helped find it. "
Great.. Can they build this into the damn AppleTV remote..
Is it ironic the only thing I want to use this on is my Apple TV remote?
What kind of other things would you put this on?
I’ve been waiting for this! I decided to not get the Tile etc because I did not want to give my information to a third party, but I’m already deep in the apple ecosystem.
Find my is a great app that I use even to locate my devices in my own house.
It's worth noting that the new Siri Remote for Apple TV does not have a U1 chip (the technology that powers AirTag), and so will not be findable in the Find My app. If you want to be able to find your Siri Remote easily, you'll need to buy an AirTag separately and strap it to the remote.
Source: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/20/siri-remote-no-u1-chip/
Will this support notifying me when a tag goes out of range from my phone? That’s when I lose things, but no tag seems to do that, which to me is by far the only useful feature for these things.
I don't know what to say, the comment section is kind of disgusting. If you like it buy it, if you hate apple then don't. These kinds of discussions got very boring ages ago.
"If AirTag is separated from its owner and out of Bluetooth range, the Find My network can help track it down. The Find My network is approaching a billion Apple devices and can detect Bluetooth signals from a lost AirTag and relay the location back to its owner, all in the background, anonymously and privately."
Peer to peer item discovery! Very cool. Just waiting for a 0-day that let's you find everybody else's things though.
I had a Tile set that I put on my keys, backpack, wallet and luggage. In the end it was too annoying with bluetooth usage draining my phone's battery and not working reliably enough when I needed it, now all the Tile stuff is sitting in a drawer. Maybe Apple can do better with their attention to UX but the main thing I learned is that these things are a whole lot less useful than they might sound. Apple probably needs to make them a bit less expensive to be successful.
I have a few "Tile" tags which seem OK but I was hoping that I could use my own hardware to scan for them instead of relying on their Android app which just gives you a rough distance. I wanted to have a few cheapo solar powered ESP32's dotted around actively probing and triangulating their position. Couldn't find any info on the Tile protocol. I think smart tags like this could be so much more useful if they were opened up.
So what's the point of LoJack now? This will probably bankrupt them. The most practical use for this product is hiding them in cars and tracking car thieves.
Seems cool, but holy hell I still never leave the house.
Am I the only person thinking of the malicious use cases of tagging things that don’t belong to you?
AirTag shows what Nokia tried to achieve with their Treasure Tag system back in 2014. Hopefully they work more reliable and that the Find My Network Accessory program will be implemented by more manufactures. Stuff like this can be useful for some people.
"The Find My network is approaching a billion Apple devices and can detect Bluetooth signals from a lost AirTag and relay the location back to its owner, all in the background, anonymously and privately." Is a feature like this already in use?
I'll be putting on my airpod pro's charging case, if I ever find it :/
I couldn't find the answer in the article: will it warn right away when they detect you left your keys or backpack behind with a tag in it? Tile has this and it's great, but you need to pay the subscription for it
> Bluetooth signal identifiers transmitted by AirTag rotate frequently to prevent unwanted location tracking.
I feel like this is going to be quickly reverse-engineered by those with SDRs sitting on their desks right now...
It's not likely to happen, but I wish Apple would provide an API for UWB and NFC. I've got the watch, and it would be really fun to tinker with this along with my home automation setup.
"The Find My network is approaching a billion Apple devices..." If I buy an iPhone, will Apple use my iPhone to provide their "Find My" service to other customers?
I wonder if they can be stolen off of cats walking around streets of I don't know say Palo Alto... and re-paired to a new iPhone. Can this pose a theft hazard to the cats?
I can't find the information on its dimensions. I don't have keys anymore (smart lock and Tesla) so I only need this for my wallet. Will this make my wallet too thick?
It seems you can add the AirTag technology to a 3rd party product via MFi program.
Would it be possible to send a custom payload? E.g. with a status report (battery percentage, etc.)
I wouldn't have expected that of Apple considering other popular options don't allow battery replacement. That always bothered me for the product waste.
I need this to become small enough that I can stick them into the barrels of my fountain pens. But then there's no replaceable battery that would fit yet.
Is Tile is screwed now? Or do they have to focus on Android now, hoping google does not invent something similar? Ok just read Samsung has something similar.
I’m curious what others are planning to use these for (or what they use Tiles, etc. for). I could see putting one on my keys, maybe a backpack. What else?
Did Apple just kill this business with their own product?
So it this the UWB version of AirTag? The one that can locate a tag to within an inch and give precise direction and distance to the tag?
What I find hilarious is that most of the examples are about finding keys.
I don't use keys anymore. I can get into my car and house with my phone.
> a removable cover makes it easy for users to replace the battery.
Oh no, someone has hacked Apple's website and is playing a prank on them.
The biggest thing here is the privacy. All competitors that I know of sell your location data or can according to their TOS
This is a great idea, I’ll be buying one on the first day. Really happy to see privacy and encryption as key selling points too.
Looks too big and heavy to put on a cat's collar, which would preclude the best use I can think of for this thing.
Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a way for this system to run scripts when certain events happen? Maybe send webhooks?
I’m thinking about placing it inside my car
I didn't realize enough people had so much trouble keeping track of their stuff for Apple to get into this.
Does it make more sense for a moderator to combine these Apple product announcements into a single entry?
> Apple-designed AirTag accessories include the Leather Key Ring in Saddle Brown, (PRODUCT)RED, and Baltic Blue for $35 (US); the Leather Loop in Saddle Brown and (PRODUCT)RED for $39 (US); and the Polyurethane Loop in White, Deep Navy, Sunflower, and Electric Orange for $29 (US).
Interesting to see what looks like a typo "(PRODUCT)RED" in an Apple press release.
I wonder if Apple has access to APIs that they will not provide Tile.
If so, they might be in a legal grey area.
Testing it has probably been challenging for them during the lockdowns and WFH situation.
It looks cool, but is a big problem that people have that is solved by a first party product
While it seems like a good product, let’s put things into perspective of big tech.
Platform owner, that has deep insights into other products on it, and their revenue, is creating competing product, that’s utilizing api and privileges that others cannot. And utilizing platform they own to push this product to users, without having to pay for it.
User replaceable battery means I've just officially bought into this over Tile.
My cats will get tagged first. I used a gps tracker on them, but that was not reliable.
I take it these don't function at all with devices earlier than iPhone 11?
Apple missed opportunity to name this ID for IoT more plainly: IDIoTs.
His keys are in an alley off 6th street. I wouldn't go looking for them.
I don’t understand why Apple doesn’t fix the lost AirPods issue. If your AirPods communicate with your phone, shouldn’t your phone be able to have a record of the last time it was in communication with your AirPods and the phone’s location at that time?
I wonder how many people are going to tag their idevices with these.
Ah, more externalization of the human mind. Double edged that.
How will I know if someone sticks an AirTag on my car?
I know the tech exists other places, but making it so common place and cheap makes me nervous.
Would love it if I could press a button and all the AirTags in range of my Bluetooth would make themselves known.
$29 for the AirTag. Another $29 for the case...?
It uses BT right ? So how can it be useful on luggages, like in their ad ? If someone steals it or the airport lose it, BT is of not use here, isnt it ?
Someone help me undertand, it's a genuine question.
How do these devices connect to the Internet? Do they have a built-in SIM? I'm not sure what they piggyback off of technologically that gets around having to pay some small SIM subscription.
Looking forward to have a doc collar based on this
Interesting that I never knew the “Find My” network has all my devices participating in finding other people’s devices, but I’m not surprised. Another reason I leave Bluetooth off by default.
Lets get crazy over this, replaceable batteries.
Is it cross platform? Can't find the info.
I'm contemplating an AirTag for my dog!
It needs a hole.
This is pretty much a take my money item.
Anyone else concerned that Apple Tags can be used to track you if you don't have an iPhone to alert you that you've been "tagged"?
Unlikely to be used for ill purposes.
Someone at Apple must really hate Tile
This isn't ready for prime time until they are small enough to attach to my wife's eyeglasses.
Can you AirTag your kids?
Another e-waste to pollute the environment marketed as eco friendly.
Does Find My’s ToS require your device to relay any AirTag’s data?
Can it run Doom?
it's a bit late tbh. looks cool though.
Apple has been in a Samsung catch up mode for years now.
How does this work under the hood? GPS? Cellular?
All we want are better computers with less lockin.
RIP Tile
cool concept, but can't help but think about how easy they are to cut loose by a thief.
So apple bought out Tile?
It will be interesting to see/do a teardown of this. I'm wondering if the UWB is separate from the Bluetooth (which I assume is 5.0), though it's probably in a single ASIC.
This claims the UWB is at 6 and 8 GHz, but they fail to show the antennas.
https://www.techinsights.com/blog/apple-iphone-11-pro-max-te...
Now we see that Apple patents slot antennas; what a load of shit:
https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2020/08/apple-p...
Where are the designers at Apple?
Come on Apple, stop stealing ideas from others.
This really looks like an april fools' joke.
I don't want these things near me
I like the idea. The price is decent. However, I feel like I've hit a limit for the number of shiny electronic things I want in my life.
I'm genuinely surprised the batteries are replaceable. Apple isn't a very green company (unless you talk to their marketing dept), so to see this is sort of amazing.
Is anyone else here disturbed by the cost/benefit tradeoff with respect to abuse?
Here's this sort of neat thing that is a high-tech fix to a really minor problem but that opens up a whole new attack surface and makes problems for everybody. I.e. your personal need to track a few items makes the commons worse for everyone.
Considering world environmental issues we should slow down consumerism around the world rather than accelerate it. For me it looks like a useless piece of tech in a long run (30-50 years). My opinion
glorified dog tags...
I don't see myself spending $30 to find my keys in my key jar that costed $3...
It looks like everyone ships AirTag location data to Apple, I wonder what the privacy implications are for this..
AirTags on a stolen vehicle
AirTags on a VIP
Apple's data about AirTag logs - when was Apple device X next to AirTag Y..
I also wonder what happens if you have a device that repeatedly calls the AirTag to drain the battery..
So with this tiny $25 thingy my neighbor can track me in real-time after gluing it to my car? Nice.
No, honestly, this is a bit concerning, isn't it?
> provides a private and secure way to easily locate the items that matter most
I am sorry but I couldn't stop laughing. How exactly is this private and secure? Only you know and a trillion dollar company :-)
I would buy something like this if I could self host the server and it could operate on virtual LAN. But letting foreign company with questionable ethics know where is the stuff that I love?
In a week you’ll see wrist bands or underwear with a slot to insert these and paranoid parents will buy them by the thousands.
Ditto for jealous spouses (secret tracer in the trunk anyone?).
> AirTag is designed for over a year’s worth of battery life with everyday use. The CR2032 battery is user-replaceable and widely available. Replacement batteries are sold separately.
That's the piece of information I wanted to know first. Devices like this can be built, but those can't run on batteries for a reasonable time frame.
Apple made it practical.