[HN Gopher] Apple Introduces AirTag
___________________________________________________________________
Apple Introduces AirTag
Author : davidbarker
Score : 893 points
Date : 2021-04-20 17:14 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| gsibble wrote:
| His keys are in an alley off 6th street. I wouldn't go looking
| for them.
| lolive wrote:
| Can you AirTag your kids?
| ConanRus wrote:
| only the legal ones
| anoncake wrote:
| > 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.
| bnj wrote:
| This is really funny
| wyldfire wrote:
| Does it make more sense for a moderator to combine these Apple
| product announcements into a single entry?
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Seems cool, but holy hell I still never leave the house.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I take it these don't function at all with devices earlier than
| iPhone 11?
| yborg wrote:
| No, they use Bt normally otherwise, you just don't get the
| precision location information.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Everything from iPhone 6S upwards will work. Basically anything
| with iOS 14 or later.
| 120bits wrote:
| 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.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| 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?
| randyrand wrote:
| just disable Find My iPhone
| oop wrote:
| It's a stretch to say anonymized reporting of nearby lost
| devices is abuse and part of a botnet, but you can turn off the
| U1 chip in settings. Privacy > Location Services > System
| Services > Networking & Wireless
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| Great, seems like it was already off. Thanks for your quick
| reply.
| thelopa wrote:
| I think you actually want the Find My system service.
| sneak wrote:
| It's a good idea to turn off location services on all Apple
| devices systemwide. Having it on sends your location over the
| network to Apple (via visible Wi-Fi MAC address lists) all
| the time - it's not just passive GPS reception.
|
| Apple then shares this data with the US federal government
| without the requirement for a warrant, whenever they ask via
| a FISA request. No probable cause of criminal activity is
| required: it can be used for pure fishing expeditions, or
| parallel construction.
|
| I don't think it's reasonable that using the GPS
| functionality in my device also means the device manufacturer
| should perpetually receive a real-time log of everywhere my
| device goes that is then made available to federal
| investigators whenever they wish to see it.
| mttjj wrote:
| Do you have a source for these claims? Specifically the
| ones about your locations being sent to Apple and then
| Apple sharing all of this data with the 'US federal
| government'.
| szc wrote:
| You keep repeating this data is shared without a warrant
| message. I don't believe you are correct in this
| assessment.
|
| The legal definition of a warrant is a written order issued
| by a judicial officer or other authorized person for the
| purpose of the administration of justice.
|
| A written request by the FISA court, which is staffed by
| eleven federal district court judges, is de facto a
| warrant.
|
| What I think you really object to is the authority and
| accountability of the FISA court. In particular, the
| conditions under which such warrants are issued. But that
| is a problem with the FISA court, not the companies that
| receive the warrants.
| sneak wrote:
| The problem lies with the companies. They have full
| knowledge that their datasets can and will be queried
| without limit by the US federal government without
| probable cause or reasonable suspicion, and they still
| collect and store the data, after being in full
| possession of these facts.
|
| In Apple's case, they even preserve vulnerabilities in
| the system to aid the state in exploiting this
| circumstance.
|
| It's to the point now where it's not inaccurate to point
| out that almost all Apple devices function as an extended
| sensor network for US federal police and military
| intelligence, given that a) they can access the data at
| any time and b) Apple makes sure not to secure the data
| from this illegal intrusion.
| szc wrote:
| Um, what? The requirement for probable cause or
| unreasonable suspicion is entirely on the judicial entity
| authorizing the action -- not the recipient of a warrant,
| however unfair or unreasonable it might be.
|
| If you look at the history, and I think you are referring
| to iCloud data, Apple designed a way to protect existing
| iCloud data. From what has been published, Apple made a
| mistake in letting the US Government know in advance --
| before the software was released.
|
| Because Apple then did not continue and protect the data,
| the story was spun, by "the media", that Apple has
| somehow "collaborated" with allowing data collection. I
| don't think that is the true story.
|
| If you look at every other new product or service that
| has been introduced even before and after the iCloud
| backup incident, privacy and not being able to obtain
| data is / was an inherent feature.
|
| What I think most likely happened with iCloud data is
| that Apple was "coerced" into capitulation -- explicitly
| not collaboration. A threat was made, if you go forward
| with your plan, we will do this.
|
| What was the threat? Something possible - Apple ships
| devices that depend on strong encryption. Strong
| encryption is still regulated by the US Commerce
| department -- a US Government agency.
|
| Even the most recent event when OCSP checks failed -- the
| developer certificate ID check, Apple's response was to
| say that they stopped logging the IP addresses. This was
| also mis-represented, likely by folks that did / do not
| understand that OCSP requests are made via HTTP requests
| and almost every HTTP server, by default, logs the client
| IP address. You have to actively not log the addresses --
| which is what Apple's apology statement said they
| changed.
| [deleted]
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Do you have a source for this claim?
|
| Yes, all mobile manufacturers seed their AGPS databases
| from phones they control. Basically sending data that tells
| them what SSIDs are visible at certain locations.
|
| But I'm pretty sure Apple is actively not combining that
| data with your identity. They have zero reason to do that.
| sneak wrote:
| They don't need to combine that data with your identity.
| The client IP address does that when the records are
| produced, as each Apple device sends hardware serial-
| linked data to Apple nearly constantly, like a
| supercookie, linking that device (and user, as they have
| the device purchase records) to that IP.
|
| Whether Apple runs a join on this data in their databases
| or not is irrelevant.
| Skunkleton wrote:
| True enough, but the same data is also available via your
| cellular provider, and they are happy to provide it to law
| enforcement as well. Your cell provider also sells the data
| for profit.
| sneak wrote:
| This issue also applies to macs and iPads, most of which
| don't talk to the cellular network.
| dblooman wrote:
| It looks cool, but is a big problem that people have that is
| solved by a first party product
| l8rlump wrote:
| Hacky solution that works by tunneling telemetry data over open
| wifi links: http://www.phreakmonkey.com/2016/08/towl-telemetry-
| over-oppo...
| mertd wrote:
| I wonder if I can put this on my dog as an activity tracker.
| [deleted]
| donclark wrote:
| I would buy this if it showed activity, the path where it went,
| was rechargeable and/or solar powered, and if it worked for
| Android as well.
| DangerousPie wrote:
| So basically you'd buy this if it were an entirely different
| product?
| donclark wrote:
| Yes. The product could be much better for what it is/does.
|
| What I listed is probably the best case scenario. If it had
| 1 or more of the things I was looking for - I would
| consider it.
|
| I will add "one more thing"... recharges wirelessly so that
| if it is on my dog, and I have the charger near his bed...
| way cool.
| DangerousPie wrote:
| If it could do my laundry I'd buy it!
| donclark wrote:
| Speaking of, why hasnt Apple produced a home robot?!? One
| that is capable of loading and unloading the diswasher,
| same with laundry, take out the trash, take bins to curb
| on trash day, etc.
| ineedasername wrote:
| 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.
| fma wrote:
| What popular options don't allow battery replacement? Tile and
| Samsung SmartTags have battery replacement...
|
| Are you referring to some other beacon tracker that's more
| popular that I have never heard of?
| dagmx wrote:
| Not all Tile products offer/offered battery replacement.
| fma wrote:
| Well, there's a difference between "don't allow for battery
| replacement" and "not all Tile products offer battery
| replacement".
|
| Anyone who is "bothered by this", would buy the ones that
| have replaceable batteries like I did.
| [deleted]
| mbragagia wrote:
| This really looks like an april fools' joke.
| jliptzin wrote:
| Someone at Apple must really hate Tile
| john_payette wrote:
| 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).
| paultopia wrote:
| Does anyone have any clue about whether other devices with a U1
| chip will also be able to do that? (I'm thinking about people
| like me, who have an apple watch 6---which does have the U1
| chip---but are a few generations behind on the iphone)
| rx_tx wrote:
| I would be surprised if the next airpods case doesn't have
| the UWB location feature as well.
| mentos wrote:
| I wonder if you can repurpose these for motion capture? Glue
| one to each joint and increase the update frequency?
| snailmailman wrote:
| I'm really curious how accurate this ends up being. Bluetooth
| location is one thing, but I've never seen bluetooth that can
| do anything more accurate than "X meters away"
|
| These UWB chips claim to do "X meters away in Y direction". The
| _direction_ aspect could be revolutionary if it works well.
| AirTags is the perfect use for it as well.
| ericklestrange wrote:
| im also super curious of this, i wanted to do a DIY angle of
| arrival necklace some time ago and last time i checked you
| required a whole mini antenna to achieve that!
| andiareso wrote:
| "+/- 30cm" ?
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| That's a 60cm range, which is non trivial. It's about the
| length of a human arm. Many desks are 120cm wide, so half
| of that.
| snailmailman wrote:
| Compared to a dot on a map that usually just narrows it
| down to an entire building?
|
| If the sound is muffled and you can't hear it, this sounds
| like it could narrow it down to a specific room or maybe
| even area of a room. Which is a _huge_ improvement.
|
| I haven't personally used a Tile before, but my impression
| was "you get what building it's in, then have to search
| everywhere til it's in earshot"
| oh_sigh wrote:
| The finding app has an arrow on it, pointing you towards
| the signal. So maybe the map has only building-level
| resolution, but once you're in the building you just
| follow the arrow until it says you're standing on it.
| slimsag wrote:
| Tile trackers are accurate within +-90cm based on some
| empirical tests I did for using them to monitor my cat's
| activity throughout my house.
|
| So Apple's +-30cm does seem to be a fairly major
| improvement, if true.
| andrewl-hn wrote:
| Our company experiments with indoor location tracking using
| UWB beacons. We've got a few demo kits from different vendors
| to test it out.
|
| Overall, If you have a UWB receiver devices installed ~ every
| 4-5 meters (15 feet) you can triangulate beacon's position to
| a pretty precise degree (around 10 cm / 4 inches accuracy).
| You can even detect the height of a beacon above the floor.
|
| However, triangulation is the key. Often we have to install
| extra receivers just to deal with big columns and barriers,
| sources of intense electromagnetism (like big electric
| engines or microwaves), or some materials (glass doors turned
| out to be a major problem, wooden doors - not so much).
|
| I'm not sure how accurate a positioning can be with your
| phone acting as a sole UWB receiver. Clearly Apple can make
| it work sufficiently well for an everyday use, but it won't
| be as precise as they show in carefully constructed demos.
| person_of_color wrote:
| So UWB trades off accuracy for range. But the range issue is
| rendered moot by the fact there's a huge iDevice network.
| Nice..
| ericklestrange wrote:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jSDtUOQXJmo
|
| two antennas using time of flight to achieve angle of arrival
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| > 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.
| zeitg3ist wrote:
| Unfortunately that's the actual way it's spelled, at least for
| branding purposes.
| rm445 wrote:
| (PRODUCT)RED is a charity that Apple has supported since the
| iPod days: you get a red device and some money goes to charity.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_Red
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| Ah, I didn't know that, thanks.
| JanSolo wrote:
| (Product)Red is not a typo. It's a weird marketing trick that
| Apple uses to make red coloured things seem more special.
| speg wrote:
| Product Red, stylized as (PRODUCT)RED or (PRODUCT)RED, is a
| licensed brand by the company Red, stylized as (RED), that
| seeks to engage the private sector in raising awareness and
| funds to help eliminate HIV/AIDS in eight African
| countries...
| wand3r wrote:
| https://www.apple.com/product-red/
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Qahlel wrote:
| glorified dog tags...
|
| I don't see myself spending $30 to find my keys in my key jar
| that costed $3...
| [deleted]
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| Lets get crazy over this, replaceable batteries.
| habibur wrote:
| > 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.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| God damn it's like I'm back in 2010 where people praise Apple
| for doing things other people have already done.
|
| Apple did not invent device trackers with replaceable
| batteries. Tile has been doing that since 2018 on some of their
| devices (Basically all except the smallest ones), and I imagine
| someone else did it before then.
| obenn wrote:
| Trackers have existed for a while, but the privacy preserving
| ad-hoc device network approach is definitely an innovation.
| redxdev wrote:
| Is it though? Tile seems to do the exact same thing
| according to https://www.thetileapp.com/en-us/how-it-works
| (see "Notify When Found")
|
| I don't have one so I can't conclusively say either way,
| but it seems like the only "innovation" Apple can probably
| claim over Tile is that every iPhone should support the
| network out of the box (I assume) rather than having to
| rely only on people who already have the app.
| mvanaltvorst wrote:
| The fact that it works with any iPhone /is/ the
| innovation. I would imagine less than 0,5% of iPhone
| users has the Tile app installed. A worldwide network of
| connected iPhones will make this technology finally worth
| using.
| tekknik wrote:
| Tile charges for that feature, and harasses you in app
| until you pay the sub. Tiles only works with phones, any
| apple device supporting the "find my" protocol can report
| the position of a tag.
|
| Integration into the Apple ecosystem is another huge one
| that Tile refused.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| "Where people praise App for things other people have already
| done."
|
| Did anyone say Apple was the first to do this? No, no they
| did not.
|
| So are you saying that nobody is allowed to be praised if
| it's been done before? Because that's what it looks like to
| me, please correct me if I'm mistaken. Thanks.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| GP said that "Apple made it practical" while quoting a part
| about having user-replaceable batteries, implying that
| Apple's use of replaceable batteries in a device tracker
| was Apple's innovation.
| austhrow743 wrote:
| No it's implying that there was a worry that Apple
| wouldn't have user replaceable batteries. They at no
| point reference any competing product.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I disagree. The comment is drawing a contrast between
| what apple did and "devices like this".
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Is like wireless head phones, Apple didn't invent them, but
| they get praised because of of great they didn't it.
| s3r3nity wrote:
| > ...people praise Apple for doing things other people have
| already done.
|
| As Drake once said: "it ain't about who did it first/ It's
| about who did it right."
| dahfizz wrote:
| And you know apple did it right? On a device nobody has
| their hands on?
|
| There's nothing wrong with being a fanboy, but don't
| pretend like you're not fanboying.
| tekknik wrote:
| Apple generally does it right. And especially since Tile
| harasses you to buy a subscription in which they use your
| phone to report others devices locations. So you think
| Tile did it right? I'm counting the days myself.
| throwinawaysoon wrote:
| it's almost as if they're paid to. Anything Apple does,
| it's just 'better/innovative/practical'
| rataata_jr wrote:
| Oh yes the canadian philosopher man.
| daniel_iversen wrote:
| The brilliant thing with apple is the privacy feature and the
| fact there are hundreds of millions of devices/people able to
| help find your lost item - that's where a lot of the other
| trackers fell down.
| bsharitt wrote:
| I'm super surprised and pleased by this. I would have expected
| these to have recharge lithium ion batteries that weren't
| replaceable.
| kemonocode wrote:
| They probably caught enough flak with how incredibly
| unserviceable AirPods were and decided not to repeat the same
| mistake, _especially_ here where it wouldn 't give any benefit
| at all. Kind of a no-brainer, but you never know with Apple...
| stu2b50 wrote:
| I don't think it's reasonable to expect user replaceable
| batteries in airpods themselves - case, perhaps. That's one
| form factor where it's not only small, but every gram lighter
| matters.
| daamsie wrote:
| Having a replaceable battery kind of undermines its potential
| as an anti-theft device, so it's not true that there wouldn't
| be any be benefit at all to having a non-replaceable battery.
| hndamien wrote:
| You don't think a smart thief that is going to remove the
| battery would also not just remove the whole tag?
| adamlett wrote:
| Lol, what flak? AirPods are to a close approximation loved by
| all reviewers and by all evidence they are a smash hit among
| consumers.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| I got knock off ones. Yeah, they nice. I lost them in about
| 3 weeks. First one bud, then the other. Shame but I'm 5
| years into my Bose over ears and I don't think I'll lose
| them.
| tommit wrote:
| I mean, yeah they're kinda small. But you losing them is
| nobody else's fault. I've been using AirPods since 2016
| and have never lost one. All because I make sure to
| always follow the rule that they are not to be placed
| anywhere but in their case. Ever. Not for a minute.
| ghaff wrote:
| Over ears are pretty much a non-starter for a lot of
| people who travel.
| kelnos wrote:
| Many of the people I know who travel a lot will _only_
| use over-ear headphones, as even the best in-ear and
| earbud headphones can get pretty uncomfortable with the
| pressure changes that happen on an airplane.
|
| I have a fairly good set of in-ear 'phones that I can
| wear pretty much indefinitely on the ground, but I
| usually can't get keep them in for more than a couple
| hours while I'm on a plane. I've tried using different
| tips for them while on a plane, but nothing works.
| occz wrote:
| How come? I've been traveling extensively with over-ears,
| what makes them a non-starter?
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm an extremely light packer. Bose over the ears are a
| complete no go. I'd do without noise canceling before I'd
| carry.
| munk-a wrote:
| I'm actually rather disappointed that it isn't using a passive
| RFID chip and multiple base stations to triangulate item
| location - that would probably bring the price for the actual
| tags down to something stupidly cheap.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| Is this actually doable? I always thought RFID is unusable at
| those distances.
| adrusi wrote:
| No. I looked into this pretty extensively a few years ago.
| Ideally you could use semi-passive RFID, which only
| broadcasts a signal when its identifying signal is
| detected. But these still need a power source, and
| batteries are not cheap, only get so small, and don't hold
| a charge forever, so I don't think you can get the cost per
| tag for comsumers in such a system much below $10.
|
| At that point, I think making them $25 and having them
| broadcast every 30 seconds so that they can be found
| anywhere in the world if someone walks by them with an
| iPhone is an obviously better solution.
|
| Of course there are wacky solutions, such as using
| autonomous drones as mobile base stations to find fully
| passive RFID tags as a home inventory solution. But that
| introduces a whole host of issues.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| RFID does work with base stations - I believe some toll
| roads use them. It's however impossible to deploy these at
| the scale necessary to make these tags work - the range is
| so short you'd need them every few meters.
| calsy wrote:
| In Australia roughly 20 kids per week present to emergency
| having swallowed or inserted a button battery and in several
| cases many have tragically died.
|
| It is an agonising death over a period of days/weeks for the
| child and horrible for the parents to witness. Many times both
| the parents and medical professionals don't realise what is
| actually happening to the child until it is too late. There is
| growing support for much tighter regulations of these batteries
| and limiting there use overall.
|
| Apple is certainly not the only company who are using them, not
| by a long shot. But they are not some holy grail of replaceable
| batteries and it surprising Apple would decide to use them now.
|
| If you are interested ABC in Australia did a rather big report
| into the increasing incidents of button battery related deaths
| and injuries, telling the story of families who's lives were
| turned upside down by them. It is incredibly difficult reading.
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-15/button-batteries-land...
| oasisbob wrote:
| Button batteries and neodymium magnets both are pretty
| horrifying when taken internally.
|
| I would be curious to see how Apple protects the battery
| compartment of the AirTag, I'm sure they thought about this.
|
| eg, my car key fob needs to be forcefully pulled apart into
| three pieces before it even hints there's a battery inside.
| jwr wrote:
| > neodymium magnets
|
| This. I personally know a parent who lost a child this way.
| The worst scenario imaginable: the child swallowed a
| magnet, and then _another one_ a day later. The magnets
| brought together two sections of their intestine. By the
| time the problem was serious enough to warrant a visit to
| the hospital, it was too late.
|
| Be very, very careful with small magnets.
| fiznool wrote:
| Just wanted to say thank you for posting this. I have three
| small children and had no idea of the dangers these batteries
| pose. We seem to be changing button batteries every couple of
| weeks or so, they are in a number of sound books and toys we
| have around the house. I will be sure to take extra care with
| them after reading that article. It's every parent's worst
| nightmare.
| tekknik wrote:
| I'm sorry, you have a child and didn't know button
| batteries (or batteries in general) were dangerous? Is
| there not a clear choking hazard and the knowledge it's
| filled with toxic/hazardous chemicals? This should be
| common sense.
| leokennis wrote:
| Nice way to shame someone brave enough to admit they were
| lacking in knowledge and announcing action to improve
| their live.
| tekknik wrote:
| Yea it's called being concerned for their kid.
| calsy wrote:
| People might not even realise a toy or electronic device
| has a button battery in them. There are no warnings on
| packaging. Kids can swallow them without an immediate
| reaction like choking. An hour or 2 later the child
| becomes sick and the parent doesn't understand why. They
| don't know they swallowed a battery, they didn't even
| know it existed. Medical professionals just assume its a
| fever. You cant see the button unless X-rays are taken
| and by that time that the injuries can be severe.
| tekknik wrote:
| It's not about realizing if a toy has a battery or not,
| the choking hazard alone is enough. There's also no
| electronic devices a child should swallow. Kids are
| swallowing these because parents like this aren't
| thinking.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I see you do not have a child.
|
| I hate the trite "oh, you'll know when you're a parent!"
| stuff as much as the next person, but... have you _met_ a
| one-year-old? So curious, and so quick to eat new things:
| a bad combo if I 've ever seen one.
| [deleted]
| calsy wrote:
| Parent of 2 young girls myself and I happened to find this
| information out by chance when shopping online for
| batteries. The stories from these parents shocked me. I'm
| really glad this info helped you, hopefully more and more
| parents spread the word.
| geoduck14 wrote:
| Serious question: what is the risk, aside from any other
| "foreign object"? Does the battery leak?
| fma wrote:
| Chemical reaction can burn a hole in your esophagus.
| cnlevy wrote:
| According to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butt
| on_cell#Accidental_ingesti... the battery's anode creates
| an electric current with the digestive tract's fluids
| that produces caustic soda which can burn through the
| oesophagus in as little as 2 hours.
| [deleted]
| maaaaattttt wrote:
| I wonder if (and I wish) battery producers could use the same
| "coating" as the Nintendo Switch cartridges. They taste
| disgusting and greatly reduce the risk of having a child
| swallowing them.
| justjash wrote:
| They already do on some. I bought a pack of 2032s (Duracell
| maybe?) a few weeks back that had the coating.
| bengale wrote:
| Why have you told me this, I now have an urge to go test
| this by licking a cartridge.
| Izkata wrote:
| Don't worry, you're not alone - about 4 years ago it got
| reported on so everyone wanted to try it.
| geoduck14 wrote:
| I don't have a cartridge. Please lick yours and report
| back.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| They don't taste much worse than pills-for-adults -
| unless you dislike bitter things, I suppose. The goal is
| to stop very small children from eating them, not
| determined 6-year-olds.
| bengale wrote:
| I have regrets. It's really weird, super bitter.
| nemetroid wrote:
| It was less bitter than I expected. Closer to arugula
| than Fernet.
| hackama wrote:
| CR2032 is 2cm wide so you're probably referring to smaller
| batteries as these cannot be swallowed by a child.
| calsy wrote:
| The link in my post shows the damage a CR2032 button does
| when swallowed.
| ghaff wrote:
| I imagine smaller diameter batteries are a bigger issue but
| apparently the concerns are for this class of batteries in
| general. [1] That said, I don't see a call for banning them
| but just for being aware of the potential danger. (Although
| another link in this thread does seem to actively
| discourage using them.)
|
| [1] https://www.kidsafevic.com.au/product-safety/button-
| batterie...
| calsy wrote:
| Yes there is, that ABC article is especially painful to
| read. The number of parents holding pictures of these
| kids most no older than 4 who have died from these
| batteries.
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-15/button-batteries-
| land...
|
| https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-welcomes-
| safety-a...
| ghaff wrote:
| People are not going to stop using small replaceable
| batteries.
| calsy wrote:
| And kids will continue to die from them, if you want to
| be that absolute about the topic.
| hoseja wrote:
| Think of the children!
|
| Parents should be doing that.
| calsy wrote:
| It isn't a moral issue so the joke isn't relevant. The
| article I linked mentions that parents hid the real truth
| of their child's death for fear of judgement. Neither the
| parents nor the medical professionals were aware of the
| problem until it was too late, but I guess thats just the
| fault of bad parenting?
| ghaff wrote:
| The devices themselves are probably choking hazards for
| young kids. As are a thousand other things around the
| house to say nothing of poisons.
| skeletonjelly wrote:
| The other thousand of things aren't as small though
| right?
| calsy wrote:
| Yes and items that are choking hazards for children are
| taken off the shelves. Poisonous chemicals must by law be
| clearly labeled and have child safety caps on them.
| Button batteries are not regulated, are found in more and
| more toys and devices that don't have necessary safety
| measures, have no warnings, are easily swallowed, the
| body gives no immediate reaction unlike chocking, is
| misdiagnosed because of this, and is an incredibly
| painful and prolonged death.
|
| That ABC article I linked describes a family watching
| their 14-month old daughter dying over 19 days as the
| battery literally burns her insides while doctors
| continue to misdiagnose the problem until its too late.
| This is not a tragic one off incident, it is occurring
| repeatedly and will continue to do so if things stay as
| they are.
| hashmymustache wrote:
| With mortality figures as low as they are it's hard to
| see that number decreasing considerably with increased
| regulation. In each example there appears to be morbidity
| secondary to unacceptably delayed medical diagnosis. It
| is incredibly easy to spot a battery on a plain film and
| an infant/toddler presenting with the symptoms described
| warrants immediate suspicion.
| calsy wrote:
| Number of deaths is not the only metric of concern. The
| batteries can cause life changing injuries within hours.
| The immediate symptoms can be easily mistaken for a flu.
| Doctors do not require an X-ray for the flu. Without an
| X-ray the button goes undetected.
|
| Excluding the issue of misdiagnosis, if every case was
| found by medical practitioner at first sight, there are
| still major complications and possible surgical
| intervention required to remove the battery.
|
| These numbers are from a country with a population of 25
| million. Im sure the numbers of injuries and deaths are
| much higher in countries like the US.
| oasisbob wrote:
| That is simply not true.
|
| Children can easily ingest objects 2cm in diameter, and
| batteries that size can be especially dangerous because of
| how they lodge in the esophagus.
|
| Citing Eck, Langham says, "Clinical outcomes can be
| determined by assessing the diameter of the button battery,
| as 90% of all major or fatal outcomes are associated with
| lithium batteries of 20 to 25 mm in diameter"
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7536469/
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32011339/
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430915/
| askvictor wrote:
| The rule of thumb used to be that if it fits in a 35mm film
| canister, it's too small to have around children younger
| than 3. Nowadays I suppose a lot of people don't know what
| a film 35 mm canister is...
| unwind wrote:
| In Sweden all infant parents are offered the
| "smadelscylinder" (literally "cylinder for small parts")
| [1] in which you can put things to determine if they're
| safe or not. Very handy.
|
| [1]: https://www.homesafety.se/produkter/ovriga-
| produkter/smadels...
| raisedbyninjas wrote:
| Another metric is a toilet paper tube.
| sgerenser wrote:
| Last package of 2032s I bought had a foul-tasting coating
| on them that is supposed to make small children instantly
| spit them out. Is that not standard nowadays? Not sure how
| effective it is as I was not brave enough to lick them
| myself.
| bzzzt wrote:
| Nintendo Switch cartridges (sd card sized) use the same
| kind of coating.
| blago wrote:
| My understanding is that, tragically, this has not been
| effective enough.
| suprfsat wrote:
| Tile's been doing one-year battery life with a CR2032 for quite
| some time now.
| cptskippy wrote:
| Only in the Tile Mate and Pro since 2018 models. Their other
| tiles do not have user replaceable batteries.
| eigen wrote:
| only the $35 Tile Pro has user-replaceable 2032 battery.
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| That's incorrect. The lower-tier Tile Mate has a 1 year
| user-replaceable CR1632 battery. The Tile Mate is only $62
| for a 4-pack compared to $89.99 for a 4-pack of Tile Pros
| or $99 for a 4-pack of AirTags. User-replaceable 1 year
| batteries have been the norm for a while as both the Mate
| and Pro were introduced 2.5 years ago.
| dqpb wrote:
| I had a tile, battery died, won't buy again.
| GurnBlandston wrote:
| That's comparable to existing products. I was hoping to read
| that Apple made the device sealed and rechargeable via a mat or
| the like.
|
| This device will be used like find my phone - a removable
| battery will make it trivial for thieves to disable the
| tracking.
| _jal wrote:
| The use case is very much not theft tracking, and they will
| not work for that.
|
| "An AirTag that has been separated from its owner for a long
| period of time will make an audible noise when it's moved, as
| part of a privacy feature to let you know there's a tag
| present."
|
| https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/04/20/moren-fine-
| prin...
| [deleted]
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| They will work if you leave one in a car that you drive
| often enough, however...
| daamsie wrote:
| I think the main use case would be for misplaced items more
| so than stolen ones.
| oivey wrote:
| Even easier than removing the tag: thieves could just remove
| the tag from the object.
| avipars wrote:
| I'm happy that it's user-replaceable ...
|
| $100 for 4 of them sets you back a good amount... especially if
| you would have otherwise had to toss them after their internal
| batteries died
| kelnos wrote:
| Given that the target market is "Apple customers", I don't
| think $25/year/device is much of a burden.
|
| Regardless, though, I don't like the idea of a device that's
| designed to be landfilled every year; replaceable batteries
| are the right way to go here.
| ghaff wrote:
| For something that I hopefully won't really need on a
| regular basis, I'd hesitate to buy something that was
| essentially a $25 annual subscription.
| adrusi wrote:
| $100/4 isn't going to be a burden for most apple customers
| if they're just putting them on their keys, wallets,
| handbags, etc. But the endgame for these sorts of devices
| is longer lifetimes and slapping them on everything you
| might conceivable care about losing, which will only become
| practical once they hit prices below $1. Maybe something
| based on semi-passive RFID?
| dheera wrote:
| Why can't they just have it recharge with a tiny solar cell or
| kinetic charging?
|
| Any object moved around by normal use would generate more than
| enough energy to charge a CR2032's worth in an entire year.
|
| That would make it truly practical by never needing a battery
| change.
|
| Apple didn't make anything significantly better than the Tile
| IMO, which also needs batteries to be replaced every year.
| rkangel wrote:
| The Apple one wins in one simple way - they already have a
| billion iPhones to find lost tags. The Tile network is
| nowhere near as big.
| dheera wrote:
| Maybe a good opportunity for Google to let the entire
| Android ecosystem help Tile and beat Apple.
| pupdogg wrote:
| If you're not intimidated by NDAs, devices like this can be
| built for approx. $15/ea. or less (based on your volume) with a
| battery option. A CR2032 will yield approx. 6-7 years of life
| for the tag as long as it's setup to emit once every 30-60s. I
| wouldn't be surprised if Apple's cost is in $1-2 per device
| with the battery.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| Home brew are fun and handy, and very useful if you tend to
| lose things in known locations like your own home. I have
| been using my own for years.
|
| The disadvantage is that homebrew don't get the network
| effects of a bunch of users who just happen to pass by when
| you dropped it in the park.
|
| So the trade off is real and depends on how and when you tend
| to lose things.
| lozaning wrote:
| I worked on the samsung version that also recently
| launched, the scale at which we could find things was
| staggering. Nothing in the world is really ever that far
| from a Samsung smartphone anymore.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| You can buy complete bluetooth beacons including battery for
| under $7 in the EU.
|
| They can easily be built for a few bucks. Good profits, and I
| expect many people will have 5-10 devices, because they're so
| cheap
| ghaff wrote:
| I played with some BLE beacons a few years back. I honestly
| didn't find them very useful for finding things--though
| that was probably some older Bluetooth version.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| The trick is of course the locating network, and UHF, but
| it's essentially the same hardware
| vagrantJin wrote:
| > Apple made it practical.
|
| Ofcourse. User replaceable battery sold seperately made
| practical by Apple Inc.
| tyingq wrote:
| Didn't expect user replaceable commodity batteries from Apple.
| That's nice.
| gerry_shaw wrote:
| It is ridiculous that something as basic as having a user
| replaceable battery is considered an unexpected nice feature.
| amelius wrote:
| Don't expect future models to have that feature, though.
| spoonjim wrote:
| For something where extremely small size is an essential
| feature (unlike a laptop computer), battery replaceability
| is a direct trade off with that.
| tekknik wrote:
| > For something where extremely small size is an
| essential feature (unlike a laptop computer)
|
| Say that to someone traveling for work.
| Avtomatk wrote:
| finally a smart comment. (I never see a company as a
| friend, companies do not perform acts of kindness, they
| only seek to grow their profits (except in very rare
| cases))
|
| There is so much innovation in science that it never
| materializes because it is not commercially viable for
| companies.
| archon810 wrote:
| Considering some of the tags cost $300+, I guess they had
| no choice.
| alephnan wrote:
| Some Tile models don't have replaceable batteries either.
|
| There's a tradeoff in form factor
| avipars wrote:
| actually not much in mine...
|
| maybe in the tile slim ones though
| trissylegs wrote:
| The one on my keys is. The one in my wallet isn't. I
| suppose because there's not standard "Very thin" battery.
| Button batteries are the limit.
| aylmao wrote:
| Throwback to that AA battery charger Apple released in 2010
| [1].
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Battery_Charger
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Yeah their older keyboards / mice had replaceable AA
| batteries. I'm saying older but it's only been a few years?
| Getting to the batteries on the keyboard was a bit of a
| pain, weird screw cap you needed an insert for to open.
| natch wrote:
| This is what turned me against Tile as a consumer. For the
| longest time they refused to provide any way for the end user
| to replace a battery, choosing instead to charge for something
| like a "recycling fee" which essentially matched the new
| normally discounted purchase price.
|
| Yes the batteries are replaceable now, for some models, but I
| even declined to interview there a couple times based on the
| obtuseness of this product decision. And partnering with HP...
| not my idea of cool.
| reportgunner wrote:
| So if the battery is replaceable I can simply remove the
| battery to disable the AirTag once I steal the item it is
| "tracking" ?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Yes, but it's not a security / theft protection device so idk
| what the chortling is about.
| mvanaltvorst wrote:
| You could also remove the whole AirTag?
| ehsankia wrote:
| As pointed out above, this is already the status quo
| (replacable battery, 1 year life, etc). Tile has had it for
| years.
|
| I'm curious if it would've been technically feasible to have
| wireless charging on these instead of replaceable battery. Or
| would that greatly increase the price?
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| Tile has user replaceable batteries on some of their
| products. Granted, it seems to be on their best sellers, but
| I somehow ended up with the thin ones, and I found out those
| don't have replaceable batteries after they died.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| There was definitely a time when they had no product that
| had replaceable batteries in their line.
|
| I swore Tile off when I found out the hard way that the
| battery gives out a year from time of sale, not from when
| you activate it.
| Zircom wrote:
| Do you have a source for that? My partner got a me some
| Tiles for my birthday 9 months ago and I still haven't
| gotten around to actually putting them on anything, would
| hate to find out they're only good for 3 more months
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Well, this is buried in their FAQ, emphasis mine:
| https://tileteam.zendesk.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/200550678-ReT...
|
| > What if my battery dies early?
|
| > We do not control the lifespan of your Tile; the
| battery is guaranteed to last a full year (or 3 years for
| Sticker and Slim) _from your purchase date._ Your Tiles
| are covered for 12 months by our worry-free warranty! If
| your Tile's battery dies before a year has passed from
| the time of purchase, we'll replace it free of charge.
| Our Customer Care team would be happy to help you!
| vel0city wrote:
| The battery is slowly discharging and dying sitting in
| the box. I got one as some vendor swag a few years ago at
| an event. I stuck it in a drawer for a couple of years
| and forgot about it. When I went to move, I tried using
| it. It was dead.
| ryanfreeborn wrote:
| You swore Tile off because because you don't like how
| batteries generally function?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| They chose to set it up this way, and also that's not
| even close to the normal shelf life of an unused battery,
| so it must be actively draining it and not "how batteries
| generally function".
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I'm still going strong off a pack of non rechargeable AAs
| that have been in the cupboard for years.
| pfranz wrote:
| Tile didn't start with replaceable batteries--they still
| don't use them in all their products. I don't know how
| AirTags will be in practice, but user-replaceable batteries
| haven't been great. I don't know if it's a technical
| restriction or not, but "low-battery" seems to be a time
| based warning and not based on battery charge. So I either
| get an alert when 1 year has passed on all of my devices at
| the same time, or they just suddenly die without warning. I
| could see why Apple might avoid this user experience.
| Hopefully, their implementation is better.
| yardie wrote:
| Lithium batteries are high output until they're not. Like
| the CR2032 battery in my car keyfob it's working until it's
| not. The drop from 3V to 1V is precipitously fast. Also, 1
| year is extremely conservative. I normally get 3 years out
| of these batteries. An Airtag that's constantly being
| interrogated may run out faster than say a keyfob used 5x a
| day
| culturestate wrote:
| Yeah, I'd expect these to last notably longer than a year
| for most people. The AirTags marketing page gives the
| measurement spec:
|
| _> Battery life based on an everyday use of four play
| sound events and one Precision Finding event per day._
|
| That seems like _exceptionally_ heavy usage to me.
| habibur wrote:
| > I don't know if it's a technical restriction or not
|
| More likely because CR batteries don't drop voltage
| significantly as it discharges. And at full discharge it
| suddenly drops dead. Which is why it's harder to measure
| "remaining charge", as that's generally calculated on
| battery voltage.
| rkangel wrote:
| It's equally hard to get any useful information about Li-
| On or Li-Po based just on battery voltage which is why
| any actually useful battery indicator involves a charge
| counter (informally known as a 'gas gauge'). The actual
| coulombs of charge are counted in and out and that gives
| a much better estimate.
| [deleted]
| floatingatoll wrote:
| If the airtag dies without warning, wouldn't it alert the
| user that the tag is out of range, and so then they could
| replace the battery? (Presumably Apple has a UI flow for
| this.)
| Kye wrote:
| Your choice is a reasonable timer or extra circuitry and
| logic for monitoring battery power that cuts the battery
| life.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| low-cost, low-power battery monitoring is like pretty
| much the most solved problem ever.
| kbos87 wrote:
| The fact that the Nest motion sensors / path lights in my
| home have been functioning for almost 2 years (their
| stated lifespan) without me needing to replace their tiny
| batteries boggles my mind.
| zsmi wrote:
| you forgot something, low-cost, low-power, low-accuracy
| battery monitoring is like pretty much the most solved
| problem ever.
|
| low-cost & low-power & high accuracy, not so much
| idiotsecant wrote:
| What do you mean? It's literally just a 2-axis lookup
| table with voltage on one axis and SOC on the other.
| rkangel wrote:
| It sometimes looks like that in the lab, but in real life
| it doesn't work. Here are two of the MANY situations that
| result in incredibly misleading voltage readouts:
|
| My battery is 80% charged, and then I go outside where it
| is 10 degC colder. Suddenly my battery voltage drops by
| 200mV and my battery looks 20% charged
|
| My battery is 80% charged and then I start playing a
| video. The increased load drops the battery voltage and
| suddenly my battery looks 20% charged.
| xondono wrote:
| Except it isn't, not with modern lithium based batteries.
|
| Now most devices use direct voltage, coloumb counting and
| battery impedance to keep track, and that's with _known_
| batteries.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Even for lithium ion batteries, notoriously hard to
| track, that's only true for the middle 70-80% of the
| charging range. It's very easy to check it a lithium ion
| battery is almost empty, just wait for the voltage to
| drop below 3.6 or 3.5 and maybe adjust for temperature.
|
| For a CR2032 specifically, you get a nice smooth drop
| over at least the last third to quarter of its charge.
| There's no difficulty in detecting that.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| A CR2032 (disposable) has 2x-4x (200 mah under ideal
| conditions, compared to 40 mah) the capacity of the same
| sized LR2032 (rechargeable), and is more stable over a long
| period of time. In addition there is the necessity of
| additional charging circuitry, and I'm not sure how small
| they can physically make the charging antenna.
|
| Lithium rechargeable would mean higher price, larger size for
| equivalent specs, with an added risk of fire!
| sydd wrote:
| Instead now we get millions of CR2032 batteries thrown into
| the garbage each day :/
|
| Anything with non-chargeable batteries is a no go from
| sustainability perspective
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| That's not true, it depends on the types of materials,
| how it is disposed, and what the alternatives are.
|
| Recall that everything is made out of rearranged earth
| atoms. So long as you put them back properly, it can be
| sustainable.
| chid wrote:
| you could get them as a re-chargeable (though it would
| likely be more waste to buy a recharger) - but I mean
| even rechargeable batteries are also consumables
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Rechargeable batteries in the 2032 (20mm wide, 3.2mm
| deep) package are generally lithium ion chemistry.
|
| This means that, depending on the circuitry they are not
| always drop in compatible since the voltages and
| discharge curves differ
| butterisgood wrote:
| I've never been able to replace the battery in a Tile. Is
| there some model I don't know about?
|
| I've been using them for at least the last 2 years.
| dijit wrote:
| > Tile has had it for years.
|
| I had a tile and it most assuredly did not have a replacable
| battery, I had to mill the thing open:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrhM5ujSU6w
| spoonjim wrote:
| Tile has products with replaceable and with non replaceable
| batteries.
| natch wrote:
| Yes now they do. For years they had only non-user-
| replaceable ones but they were happy to charge a large
| fee for a swap.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| "Now" like in the last 3+ years.
| quangv wrote:
| Tile sends me free replaceable batteries.
|
| Hopefully AirTag opens up their API so Tile can
| integrate. I'm just assuming AirTag would be slightly
| more integrated than Tile.
| mrunkel wrote:
| The "find my" app is open to third party devices, but
| they have to get certified.
| FabHK wrote:
| Here is Gruber's take (from Daring Fireball):
|
| > Conspicuously absent from the list [of third-party
| products using the Find My network], of course, is Tile.
| Given their membership in Epic's Coalition for App
| Fairness, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Apple to
| promote Tile's products. And it's unclear to me whether
| Tile even wants to be in the Find My app -- their spat
| with Apple is more about their own app competing with
| Find My, and their accusations that Apple unfairly
| advantages Find My by not holding it to the same rules as
| third-party apps that ask for always-on location access.
| Apple's solution is this third-party accessory program;
| Tile's preferred solution would be Apple allowing Tile's
| own app to do everything Find My can do.
|
| https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/04/07/find-my-
| third-p...
| sbuk wrote:
| They do? They charge me an annual subscription for that.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I've had a Tile with a replaceable battery since 2018
| (according to the app just now). It replaced the previous
| single-use model.
| Me1000 wrote:
| Yeah, I had to check their website... it looks like some of
| the their models have replaceable batteries now, but they
| certainly didn't start that way (and not all of their
| products have a replaceable battery today).
| ehsankia wrote:
| Never claimed it started this way, but they've had
| replaceable models for ~3 years now, if not longer.
| friendzis wrote:
| > Or would that greatly increase the price?
|
| Not only price, but size/weight too. It seems that currently
| the thing is 99% battery/case/PCB and is designed around the
| battery. While technically wireless charging is off-the-
| shelf, incorporating that may have been seen as "too
| expensive" and/or "too large".
| cool-RR wrote:
| Audio jacks were also the status quo...
| tekknik wrote:
| and so was 66Mhz 486 processors and RAM measured in KB and
| MB. things change.
| runawaybottle wrote:
| If you are forgetting where your object is, you are probably
| forgetting to charge it too.
| jeffy90 wrote:
| I lose my phone all the time but somehow I manage to charge
| it
| Nextgrid wrote:
| To be fair, replaceable batteries in laptops and phones also
| used to be the status quo and Apple successfully changed
| that. Just because it's the status quo wouldn't prevent Apple
| from "thinking different".
| sjwright wrote:
| Replaceable batteries were superseded by batteries of
| sufficient capacity for 99% of users. (And for the
| remaining 1% I'm sure the non-Apple marketplace has
| fantastic, no-compromise solutions.) Remember when it was
| impressive for a laptop to have three _real_ hours of
| productive battery life? Back then, most laptop batteries
| were trivially hot-swappable. Now it 's normal to get eight
| or more hours of productive use from a laptop battery.
|
| I realise that capacity is theoretically orthogonal to
| swappability, but functionally it's relevant because
| battery casings, compartments, connectors and chassis
| strengthening elements all take up space that could
| otherwise go to a larger battery pack.
| adrr wrote:
| They are replaceable just not user replaceable though
| user's can change it if they buy $10 worth of tools. Just
| like my car's battery isn't user replaceable unless i buy
| tools to be able pull the battery out of the battery
| compartment.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Your car's battery isn't glued in place behind a cover
| held by screws with an intentionally obscure pattern. Not
| to mention, car manufacturers don't (yet?) use
| specialized batteries that only they can source
| legitimately nor use DRM to make the car reject a
| perfectly good battery just because it's not the original
| one that came with it.
| adrr wrote:
| I've never changed the battery in my IPhone but my MBPr
| 15 it took an OEM battery fine. I cut the glue with some
| spectra fishing line and wasn't that hard. Took me about
| 15 minutes to replace it. The IFixit OEM battery came
| with the tools to change out the battery.
| throwanem wrote:
| Older iPhones are much the same; I've done several
| battery and screen replacements on my 1st gen SEs. A heat
| gun comes in handy, but beyond a couple cheap
| screwdrivers most of what you need is just decent
| eyesight and steady hands. (I only have one of those, but
| can still fake the other for a few years yet before I
| need one of those magnifier visors.)
|
| Newer ones, I don't know. It does look like Apple is
| starting to move in truth toward the hostility to DIY
| repair they've always been claimed, in the past often
| falsely, to display.
|
| It's a shame. I really like the idea of that purple 12
| mini - it'd go so well with my fountain pen! But if I
| can't fix it myself when it needs fixing, that's a much
| knottier problem.
| Angostura wrote:
| Let me just pop out and change the battery on my Tesla.
| ctdonath wrote:
| My next car's battery will be glued in place, permanently
| affixed to the frame. When it dies after a million+
| miles, I'm sure both battery and steel body will be quite
| ready for recycling.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Assuming it doesn't incinerate you first, of course...
| rconti wrote:
| Standard tools or specialty tools?
|
| I suppose if you can't lift 80lbs out of an awkward spot,
| it's also not user replaceable? The line has to be drawn
| somewhere.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| > Apple successfully changed that
|
| I feel like this gives far too much credit to Apple. Any
| one company can "think differently" but Apple shouldn't get
| the blame for all of the other companies following suit.
|
| Remember the ads Samsung ran before axing the headphone
| jack a year later?
| no_wizard wrote:
| Turns out all the people up in arms about the headphone
| jack didn't really amount to much more than media fervor.
|
| I really like the look of this over the tile products
| personally and it's "rightly sized" to me. I definitely
| will see myself owning a few of these air tags
| capableweb wrote:
| We can just blame all the companies for doing X, we don't
| have to be so selective. Apple and Samsung both removes
| user replaceable batteries? Well, screw both of them
| then.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| Amen. I'm tired of HN discussions trying to find a single
| cause/blame when you can often spread the blame pretty
| well around.
| r00fus wrote:
| > Apple shouldn't get the blame for all of the other
| companies following suit
|
| It's not about blame - Apple has repeatedly changed the
| landscape of computing for decades. Mac, modern laptops,
| iPhone. Downplay their influence if you will, but they
| have been the harbinger so often before...
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Apple didn't actually invent the modern laptop; that's
| just Apple PR. The Xerox NoteTaker, Osbourne 1, Dulmont
| Magnum, Toshiba T1100 and Compaq SLT all get credit for
| the "first" in different ways - and all in the 80s,
| before Apple produced a single computer that could be
| called a "modern laptop". (Except the NoteTaker, which
| was 70s.) I vote the Toshiba T1100 as the first modern
| laptop, btw.
|
| Apple was the first to put a trackball in a laptop
| (though that laptop was, in the rest of its design, at
| least five years out of date - _hardly_ modern), invented
| the laptop _palm rest_ , and - much later - was the first
| to put an Ethernet port in.
| serial_dev wrote:
| I do think it couldn't have happened without Apple doing
| it first from the big manufacturers.
|
| Apple had (and still have) the status and prestige to do
| anything and make that a standard. If Huawei/Samsung/etc
| didn't include chargers, didn't use USB or USB C, changed
| from 3.5 to some proprietary audio jack first, they would
| have been ridiculed.
|
| But once Apple changed these things (except luckily the
| USB), these companies could point out that "Apple does
| this, so it must be an acceptable idea".
|
| The most annoying thing about this is that they are
| trying to spin these changes as innovation or something
| for the environment.
| valuearb wrote:
| It wasn't status or prestige. It was developing battery
| conditioning software and integrating it in the OS so the
| batteries could last years before replacement.
|
| And when Apple did this, they were able to pack more
| wattage on their MacBooks, making them last substantially
| longer on a charge than competitors. Competitors had to
| do same to eventually catch up.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| > these companies could point out that "Apple does this,
| so it must be an acceptable idea".
|
| Friends and jumping off bridges and all that.
|
| I get that Apple has immense sway in these marketplaces
| but I've never gotten a good explanation for why it's
| Apple's fault when another company makes that same anti-
| consumer decision. Headphone jacks being the most
| prominent example.
| serial_dev wrote:
| I didn't blame anyone, I was just saying it couldn't have
| happened without Apple doing things first.
|
| And not even all the things I listed really annoy me, I
| have listed examples for things where Apple had to be the
| first from the established manufacturers. For example the
| audio jack, I basically never used wired headphones in
| the last 6 (?) years (since the first time I bought Beats
| with Bluetooth), so I don't even care.
| addicted wrote:
| Apple has an ability to drive change that other computer
| manufacturers don't.
|
| The simple reason is that Apple is the only manufacturer
| in a specific market. The market for MacOS (or in the
| case of iDevices, iOS) users.
|
| What that means is that Apple can introduce a pretty
| shitty change and not lose too many customers to other
| manufacturers because switching from Apple to another
| manufacturer is much harder than from Dell to HP.
|
| So, for example, if Dell were to introduce those shitty
| butterfly keyboards, that were nearly unusable and got
| spoilt so easily, they would have to change back to their
| old keyboards within months, unlike Apple, which managed
| to stick to that design for years and generations of
| devices without suffering too much.
|
| I use that example because it was an unambiguously worse
| option, so it nicely illustrates how Apple has a lock-in
| that others don't. But Apple can use that lock in to then
| introduce what are potentially more useful changes (USB2)
| and/or changes that are not fully baked yet (USB-C), and
| not suffer the consequences other manufacturers would.
| jen20 wrote:
| > it was an unambiguously worse option
|
| Speak for yourself. The butterfly keyboard is the only
| laptop keyboard I have ever encountered which I can type
| on for a full day without flaring RSI. Despite having a
| fully-loaded 16" with the replacement keyboard, I still
| use the 4.5-year-old butterfly model for almost
| everything.
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| Yeah, I personally prefer the typing feel of the
| butterfly keyboard: I'm just a bit hesitant about its
| reliability.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > What that means is that Apple can introduce a pretty
| shitty change and not lose too many customers to other
| manufacturers because switching from Apple to another
| manufacturer is much harder than from Dell to HP.
|
| I totally get this interpretation, but I genuinely cannot
| work out how to tell the difference between this
| explanation and the alternative explanation that this
| actually just is what the smartphone market prefers and
| when given the choice they will choose it.
|
| That would also explain why essentially all competitors
| copy the change one product cycle after the first company
| makes the change. Unless you're suggesting that Apple's
| competitors are actually colluding with Apple to remove
| the headphone jack despite strong market opposition, I
| really don't see how you can definitively say that Apple
| and its competitors aren't simply making products that
| most people prefer.
| bredren wrote:
| As a customer, my buy-in is built on the trust that the
| majority of the time the company is going to make the
| right call.
|
| If they make the wrong call, they'll handle it. Or they
| won't and you'll get burned a little bit.
|
| When Apple makes an obvious error, like with the
| keyboard, or something external is holding back the
| quality of the product (recent pre-Apple silicon laptops)
| you do have to sort of pay attention and if possible
| steer around the problem.
|
| As an example I largely sidelined the weak 2018 MacBook
| Air and instead invested in maxing out a Mac Mini. That
| turned out really well for me.
|
| Sometimes, like with the butterfly keyboard, it feels
| like Apple does not take enough responsibility for screw
| ups and take greater measures to make customers whole.
|
| This happened recently for me with the iPhone 12 Magsafe
| Silicon case, which is a good product but flawed in the
| context of the iPhone upgrade program.
|
| In that way, I think Apple could and should be much more
| generous about returning value to its customers instead
| of to shareholders.
|
| If there were any existential threat to Apple, I'd say
| it's the need to reward shareholders instead of
| customers.
| Nursie wrote:
| As someone who has mostly had android phones (but not
| now), I watched the wireless charging thing unfold in a
| hilarious way.
|
| A bunch of android phones had wireless charging years
| ago, including one of the nexus devices IIRC. Great! I'll
| buy a couple of wireless charging pucks and use them. No
| more flakey USB ports that give up before the phone does.
|
| Apple didn't pick it up.
|
| Android phones all dropped the feature.
|
| Apple picked it up, hyped it, rolled it out.
|
| Android phones started appearing with it again.
|
| It's like Apple _has_ to lead the way, and even useful
| features can 't survive in the android ecosystem without
| Apple's blessing.
| myspy wrote:
| Afaik Samsung phones had wireless charging since 2016 and
| kept that, didn't they? I'm an iPhone guy, but my
| colleagues were using wireless chargers around that time.
| Nursie wrote:
| Interesting ... looking up the specs the site I use tells
| me that was "market dependent", I wonder if that has
| impacted my experience.
|
| The motorola Nexus 6 had Qi charging in 2014, then that
| manufacturer seemed to back away from it. Huawei only
| picked the feature up in 2019 AFAICT, my P20 pro didn't
| have it.
|
| But yes, it does look like the galaxy phones have had it
| all along. I wonder why I discounted those?
| Larrikin wrote:
| Thankfully saner heads have prevailed at companies like
| Sony.
|
| They solved the waterproof phone with a headphone jack
| many years ago, went with with the craziness of removing
| it for no reason reason like Samsung and apple, and have
| since put it back in all of their phones as there hasn't
| been any noticable improvement in phones that have
| removed it, but now you have to make sure your headphones
| are charged.
| ehsankia wrote:
| It wouldn't, but in this specific case they didn't. Did
| apple bring any actual innovation that I missed? That's why
| I was proposing wireless charging, that would've actually
| been a nice step forward.
| pfranz wrote:
| > Did apple bring any actual innovation that I missed?
|
| I guess it depends on what you think of as innovation.
| Their marketing pointed to "scalloped" batteries instead
| of square so they can take up more empty space (plus the
| space that would have been used by covering the battery
| and a fatter connector).
|
| In my experience, their batteries went from 200 charge
| cycles, about ~4 of battery life, and often failing
| before reaching it's end of life to 1000 charge cycles,
| about 8-10hrs of battery life, and rarely getting
| "service" warnings suggesting replacement. At least last
| time I needed to swap batteries I just needed a small
| screwdriver.
|
| I was very concerned when they ditched removable
| batteries because that was one part I constantly had
| problems with. Since those issues were address I'm very
| glad they went that way.
| ehsankia wrote:
| > Their marketing pointed to "scalloped" batteries
| instead of square so they can take up more empty space
|
| I'm confused, are these standard CR2032 batteries or not?
| Do I have to buy some special Apple battery?
| applecrazy wrote:
| Parent comment is referring to MacBook batteries
| Nextgrid wrote:
| However, none of this justifies intentionally making the
| batteries extremely difficult to replace. It wouldn't
| make any noticeable difference to their bottom line (when
| you consider the margins on their products) to hold
| batteries with a screwed-in bracket (or even by
| compression with some foam) instead of hard-to-remove
| adhesive.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Adhesive responds better to thermal expansion/contraction
| cycles than screws. Using foam to compress the battery to
| hold it in place can prevent safe thermal expansion and
| isn't necessarily going to hold everything in place with
| vibration or percussion.
| pharmakom wrote:
| Phone batteries stopped being user replaceable once smart
| phones started improving at such a rapid pace that even if
| you could replace the battery in your 2 year old device you
| won't want to because the UI would be dog slow and the
| camera a blurry mess compared to current model.
|
| Funnily, the time for replaceable batteries in phones seems
| to have arrived, but users are now trained not to expect
| it.
|
| Sending your phone in for a manufacturer battery
| replacement after 2 years of use to get a further 2 is a
| good compromise in my view. My last replacement was about
| $50.
| flatiron wrote:
| I did like having two batteries and an external charger.
| 30 seconds I'm out the door with a freshy
| katbyte wrote:
| i guess with external battery packs being thrown at
| people every trade show there are alternatives now.
|
| I have a small one on me always that can charge my phone
| twice over
| xondono wrote:
| Would you want it enough to pay 20% to 30% more and have
| the phone be ~5mm thicker?
|
| Because the obvious issue is that most people won't.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Why is that the requirement? The extra layers of plastic
| to enable removable batteries cost close to zero dollars
| and don't have to cost more than a millimeter.
| xondono wrote:
| " The extra layers of plastic to enable removable
| batteries cost close to zero dollars and don't have to
| cost more than a millimeter."
|
| "It's two lines of code, how hard can it be?"
|
| More seriously, the cost of designing a battery pack goes
| way beyond that, just like in software there's a world of
| difference between an internal and an external interface.
| Adding ESD protection for instance can be a headache.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| There's an enormous amount of design cost in a phone no
| matter what. Doing it differently from the start does not
| substantially increase the cost, and I'm not asking for a
| retrofit.
|
| It's absolutely bonkers to suggest a 20-30% increase in
| total cost that would be driven by design costs; that's
| more than doubling the entire design budget!
| tekknik wrote:
| There's also connectors that wouldn't be there normally,
| those connectors also have to be large enough to support
| the current. Then there's the plastic lined battery well,
| as well as the plastic battery case. It's not as simple
| as throwing plastic around a battery and calling it a
| day.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > There's also connectors that wouldn't be there
| normally, those connectors also have to be large enough
| to support the current.
|
| Supporting 5-10 amps requires very small pins. It's a
| tiny percentage of the battery size.
|
| > Then there's the plastic lined battery well, as well as
| the plastic battery case. It's not as simple as throwing
| plastic around a battery and calling it a day.
|
| Yes, those are the layers of plastic I was talking about.
|
| I didn't say you could slap something together in half an
| hour, I said it would cost close to zero dollars when
| talking about the per-phone price.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| On the cusp of the transition, I attended a music
| festival with a couple of friends. They both had modern
| smartphones, I had something closer to an old-school
| feature phone. At some point on what was probably the
| first day, we all went to the phone charging tent. They
| stayed there for an hour or two with their phones plugged
| in. I walked in and walked back out again immediately,
| with a fresh battery for my phone handed over to me for
| free.
|
| I do like having a thin phone, but the utility of a
| replaceable battery has been sorely downplayed over the
| years.
| tekknik wrote:
| Meanwhile modern smart phones charge to 80% in 15-30
| mins. If they were in there for hours they wanted it at
| 100%
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Well, this was a good few years ago now, but I sure they
| DID want 100% charge anyway!
| Izkata wrote:
| Hopefully MobileQubes [0] or similar competitors become
| more prevalent, there's a convention I go to where the
| hotel has had these kiosks since 2015. You pay ~$5 to
| rent a fully-charge external battery for 24 hours, with
| whatever connector your phone uses, after which you
| return it to the kiosk. If you fail to return it you're
| automatically charged the "buy" cost.
|
| Yeah it's not free, but it's really nice if you
| underestimated your battery life since you're not tied to
| a single spot while charging it.
|
| [0] https://mobilequbes.com/
| georgehaake wrote:
| It needs a hole.
| symlinkk wrote:
| 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.
| rapjr9 wrote:
| 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?
| msoad wrote:
| 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?
| Analemma_ wrote:
| I'm surprised they didn't make multiple form factors. I was
| considering replacing my Tile trackers with this, but without
| an equivalent to their wallet tracker [0] it's a no-go.
|
| [0]: https://www.thetileapp.com/en-us/store/tiles/slim
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| It'll fit in a "Costanza wallet", but will make anything
| minimal pretty uncomfortable... try the AR view
| eatbitseveryday wrote:
| Did Apple just kill this business with their own product?
|
| https://chipolo.net/
| danielmeskin wrote:
| Yes, it even costs the same.
| [deleted]
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Nope, Apple just enabled their business:
|
| "works exclusively with the Apple Find My App"
|
| It's a 3rd party device that hooks into the network.
| varispeed wrote:
| > 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?
| djrogers wrote:
| Have you looked into this _at all_? Apple doesn 't know the
| location of any of these things - ever. It's all spelled out in
| their very detailed white papers, but in short the location
| data is e2e encrypted and only available to your phone.
| cjdell wrote:
| 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.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| 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.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| 11 grams is too heavy?
| JabavuAdams wrote:
| 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.
| Rapzid wrote:
| I didn't realize enough people had so much trouble keeping track
| of their stuff for Apple to get into this.
| jypepin wrote:
| 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?
|
| [0] https://www.thetileapp.com/en-us/store/tiles/sticker
| jpalomaki wrote:
| Difference is also that majority of iOS devices people are
| carrying will be part of the tracking network.
|
| Not sure how widely Tile is used. One issue on iOS with them is
| that you get these regular prompts "Tile has been using your
| location - do you want to disable it".
| freddyheppell wrote:
| IMO the big advantage of AirTags will be that you can locate
| them if they're near anyone with an iPhone, but Tile is limited
| just to their own users. Anecdotally I don't know anyone who
| uses Tile but I know plenty of people with iPhones.
| Krasnol wrote:
| I know a lot of people who with Android phones which makes
| AirTags the limited item.
| fma wrote:
| Also FWIW Samsung has SmartTags where Samsung phones
| (forgot which version+ is required) will ping tags if lost
| in public. There's prob more Samsung phones than Tile users
| - so what Apple is doing w/ their ecosystem isn't
| innovative.
|
| I have Samsung, my wife has Apple...so we're sticking with
| Tile.
| sorahn wrote:
| My motorcycle keys had a tile on them, and my dad was driving
| it around for an extended trip. I got 1 (singular) tile ping,
| his entire 6 week trip.
|
| The fact that any iPhone (> 11) will ping home with the
| location of one of these is the croudsourced killer feature
| in the making for 2 years before release.
|
| I'm in for a 4 pack.
| wyxuan wrote:
| The U1 might be a big differentiator - a lot more fine tuned
| way of determining the presence (spatially) of where the airtag
| is
| athorax wrote:
| The tile ones only have 150-400ft range, which is fine for
| locating things in your home, but not so great if you lose
| something out in public
| nostromo wrote:
| And honestly not even that good in your home. I love their
| product design, but the functionality never lived up to the
| promise.
| jypepin wrote:
| Ah interesting, I've never used Tile so I didn't know it had
| such a limited range.
| [deleted]
| fma wrote:
| Uhm...that's how bluetooth works? It's the same technology as
| AirTag.
|
| Tile has an ecosystem where other tile users can back to you
| a tile you reported as lost.
|
| Samsung has their where their SmartTag, anyone with a Samsung
| phone can report your SmartTag location.
| r-zip wrote:
| In addition to what the other commenter said, Tile products are
| very flaky. The price difference doesn't matter to me, since
| Tile's products just don't work.
| eli wrote:
| Tile has been complaining for some time that their products
| are flaky because new iOS privacy measures prevent them from
| accessing location data while running in the background, even
| if the user sets the app permission to "always allow."
|
| https://9to5mac.com/2020/04/02/apple-breaking-promises/
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| destroy your competition by means of public apis! its great
| novok wrote:
| Yeah it used to be more reliable until a few OS updates
| ago, so I definitely believe tile on this front.
| patentatt wrote:
| Used to be more reliable, but also consumed ~10% of my
| battery on any given day. It's a trade-off
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| Android does the same if anyone's wondering
| bagacrap wrote:
| Android has a (functioning?) always allow setting.
| bagacrap wrote:
| that link says that "always allow" doesn't exist (needs to
| be reinstated)
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean this doesn't seem that bad? I share my location with
| my SO with Google Maps and every so often my phone pops up
| a thing that's like "hey you wanna keep doing that?", I tap
| yes, and move on. I do the same with Tile.
|
| I've never had flakiness with Google's implementaion on
| iOS. What does Tile need in the background that keeps it
| from working?
| yarcob wrote:
| Apple's own apps don't ask if you want to keep letting
| them access your location.
| ffggvv wrote:
| yeah but they can't use apples internal apis to track things.
| so apple gets to cheat unfairly on ios
| phlyingpenguin wrote:
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apples-find-my-
| networ...
| eli wrote:
| Do you think Tile will be allowed to participate? At what
| cost?
| djrogers wrote:
| Tile declined to participate...
| eli wrote:
| Interesting. Is it free to join? Would Apple get early
| looks or veto power over new products? Seems like Tile is
| in a tough spot no matter what.
| ffggvv wrote:
| lol so they can maybe catch up in a year when apple is
| releasing their product using those apis now
| fomine3 wrote:
| It's just different branded AirTags, isn't it?
| splithalf wrote:
| Unlikely to be used for ill purposes.
| [deleted]
| xyst wrote:
| it's a bit late tbh. looks cool though.
| darepublic wrote:
| I don't want these things near me
| dbg31415 wrote:
| 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.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Do you people even read the linked articles?
|
| Here, I'll paste the relevant part for you:
|
| "AirTag is also designed with a set of proactive features that
| discourage unwanted tracking, an industry first. Bluetooth
| signal identifiers transmitted by AirTag rotate frequently to
| prevent unwanted location tracking. iOS devices can also detect
| an AirTag that isn't with its owner, and notify the user if an
| unknown AirTag is seen to be traveling with them from place to
| place over time. And even if users don't have an iOS device, an
| AirTag separated from its owner for an extended period of time
| will play a sound when moved to draw attention to it. If a user
| detects an unknown AirTag, they can tap it with their iPhone or
| NFC-capable device and instructions will guide them to disable
| the unknown AirTag."
| itisit wrote:
| Does Find My's ToS require your device to relay any AirTag's
| data?
| theshrike79 wrote:
| You really think Apple would release a new product and forget
| to update the ToS to allow it? :D
| itisit wrote:
| No. Asking if there's a way to opt-out.
| ezconnect wrote:
| Another e-waste to pollute the environment marketed as eco
| friendly.
| andreagrandi wrote:
| 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.
| Evan__ wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they allow you to define safe areas where you
| can leave things without the lost indicator firing.
| andreagrandi wrote:
| This could be a good workaround
| fma wrote:
| On the flip side, if you have AirTags on your keys, you always
| need to bring your phone even if you go for a quick errand.
|
| Or you go on vacation, give some keys to a friend/neighbor to
| dog sit, house sit...and it starts beeping.
|
| Good intentions - but lots of questions for sure.
| darthrupert wrote:
| I'll be putting on my airpod pro's charging case, if I ever find
| it :/
| prionassembly wrote:
| 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?
| shuckles wrote:
| Apple Watch for kids launched last fall with cellular and GPS
| support. You probably want something like it for kids in the
| older end of that range.
| asdff wrote:
| I wouldn't put a magnet for theft on my child's wrist in
| effort to keep them from getting lost.
| thesmok wrote:
| A stolen apple watch is pretty much useless. A stolen
| iPhone can be sold for parts, as there's a big market for
| original screens, but apple watch parts are in not as big a
| demand (I think).
| macintux wrote:
| I find it hard to imagine that a $400 device is worth the
| risk of being caught accosting or kidnapping a child.
| Society doesn't look kindly on people who threaten
| children.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Kinda think kid would loose it quicker, but it really
| depends where you live. In some places their books might
| be worth more. In some it's 3 months salary.
|
| Watch does sound like a good fit for kids - enough to get
| information, but not screen size to lurk on it all day.
| yomansat wrote:
| Stick an old phone into their pocket/bagpack, sim ideal but not
| required.
|
| Connect that phone to your phone hotspot, so you can turn on
| your hotspot and, if the phone connects, it's nearby plus you
| can use Find My to track it from there, play sound... etc.
|
| Bonus if you have access to e.g. XFinity or whichever is the
| most prevalent free wifi around, so your phone can come online
| occasionally.
| billyhoffman wrote:
| I appreciate this as a hack but it:
|
| 1) does not sound reliable or easy
|
| 2) fails open (if something doesn't happen, that means
| something bad happened)
| yomansat wrote:
| Oh it's absolutely a hack for the better-than-having
| nothing scenario :)
|
| My main issue was remembering to charge the old phone every
| few days as I'm not in need of this regularly, so more of
| an occasional thing like to an unfamiliar place/country, or
| on a trip to Disney.
| bouke wrote:
| Would like to know this as well.
|
| The deciding factor would be the responsiveness of a lookup.
| How quick can one locate the tag when it is out of reach of
| your iPhone and needs to be located through the "public
| network"?
| duskwuff wrote:
| Not suitable for purpose. AirTags are for objects which will
| stay in one place when lost. They aren't appropriate for
| tracking "objects" which will move on their own, like pets or
| people, nor are they likely to work on the time scale that
| you'd need to find a lost child.
| quenix wrote:
| I'm not sure why you say that. There is no evidence
| supporting this in Apple's documentation or any protocol
| reverse-engineering literature I've read on this. Further,
| Apple's own marketing shows an AirTag being tracked around
| San Francisco.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| 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
| dylan604 wrote:
| I think the GPS collars would be better for this
| nexuist wrote:
| The AirTag network requires other Apple devices to be nearby in
| order to register the location. The chip itself doesn't have
| any GPS capabilities. Ultimately it depends where your cat
| usually goes; if he's surrounded by people or hanging out
| around sidewalks chances are someone with an iPhone will walk
| by and automatically update his location. If he's in the forest
| or in rural areas without any tech nearby, AirTags won't help
| you until he gets back into civilization.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| > 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?
|
| No data is stored on the device, because the device doesn't
| know where it is :)
|
| It's just a beacon shouting "I'M HERE" at certain intervals. If
| an iDevice spots the shout, it'll add a GPS location to the
| message and send it to Apple.
|
| (Yes there's a bunch of encryption and changing IDs too, but
| that's the basic idea)
| Schnitz wrote:
| RIP Tile
| theshrike79 wrote:
| They'll still have all the Android users :)
| mutt_dog wrote:
| The biggest thing here is the privacy. All competitors that I
| know of sell your location data or can according to their TOS
| osynavets wrote:
| Can it run Doom?
| Lammy wrote:
| 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. "
| theshrike79 wrote:
| https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1902/en_US/app...
|
| Page 139 onwards is the FindMy network security stuff. Apple
| actively doesn't want to know where your shit is. This is
| similar to the COVID tracking stuff Google and Apple are
| running.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _All I want to know is if a LEA could subpoena Apple for the
| location of any /all of my AirTags_
|
| Like anything that's centralized in the cloud, not only can law
| enforcement subpoena the provider for your data, they can
| subpoena your data without you ever being notified of the fact.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Hard to subpoena something that doesn't exist.
| djrogers wrote:
| > All I want to know is if a LEA could subpoena Apple for the
| location of any/all of my AirTags
|
| No, they can't. Only your device can decrypt the beacon info,
| and Apple doesn't store location data.
| lights0123 wrote:
| https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.02282.pdf, see 6.1: "The BLE
| advertisements sent out by a lost device contain an EC public
| key pi. A finder device that receives such an advertisement
| determinesits current location and encrypts the location with
| pi.
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| 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.
| njkumarr wrote:
| hackernews is usually pretty negative and runs with their
| narrative is
| unixhero wrote:
| All we want are better computers with less lockin.
| el_benhameen wrote:
| 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?
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Car, bicycles, wallet/keys, backpack.
|
| I'd install one in my grandma if it could be implanted :D
| bob1029 wrote:
| > 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...
| X-Istence wrote:
| Someone already has.
|
| https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/03/04/researchers-rever...
| skohan wrote:
| 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.
| dangom wrote:
| Does anyone know if this works in 3D? Could it be used to find in
| which floor a car was parked, for example?
| butterisgood wrote:
| User replaceable battery means I've just officially bought into
| this over Tile.
| stickac wrote:
| 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.)
| [deleted]
| vonsydov wrote:
| Where are the designers at Apple?
| kjrose wrote:
| So apple bought out Tile?
| animex wrote:
| 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"?
| andrewla wrote:
| 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!".
| jfengel wrote:
| A Tile in fact does that. The Tile has a button. Press and hold
| it, and the device that's tied to the tile will beep. You could
| mount it on the wall, if you wanted to.
| asdff wrote:
| raspberry pi and some script to click through the find my
| iphone website for you and hit the alarm after hitting your
| button.
| andrewla wrote:
| I will pay you cash money for this functionality, if you can
| get it to use a delegatable OAuth2 token instead of requiring
| my iCloud password. I've looked into this, and because this
| particular use case is not supported in the iCloud public
| API, all that remain are horrifying hacks.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| Apple Watch has had this "make-my-phone-beep" feature from day
| one and it's been excellent.
| jordsta wrote:
| If you so happen to have a Google Home you can also now ask the
| Google Assistant to find your iPhone too:
| https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/14/google-assistant-locate...
| sib wrote:
| If you're talking about an iPhone, it works exactly this way.
| You can use "Find My..." to play a lost sound on the missing
| device.
| singularity2001 wrote:
| Chipolo works both ways. Double tap and your iPhone rings.
| andrewla wrote:
| Awesome! Not released yet, unfortunately, but this is exactly
| the thing!
|
| If they can do it, maybe that means that Apple intends to
| open up the API, which means I can do my Raspberry PI button
| to get things working.
| singularity2001 wrote:
| It is released, I tried it last week. (currently needs
| their app installed, not sure if it will work without soon)
| RandallBrown wrote:
| You can ask Siri to play a sound on your wife's phone if you
| have your own iPhone or a Mac nearby.
| andrewla wrote:
| Yes, that is the functionality I use now, and what I want
| this button to activate. Except without the other phone/mac
| involved in the process.
| [deleted]
| bombcar wrote:
| If you setup a HomePod or Find My iPhone correctly, you can
| trigger it from that or your iPhone.
| dangoor wrote:
| Apple Watch can do this, as long as your wife would wear the
| watch.
| Wonnk13 wrote:
| cool concept, but can't help but think about how easy they are to
| cut loose by a thief.
| inasio wrote:
| 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.
| JabavuAdams wrote:
| What is a "ski lift"? I don't remember the old times before
| Covid.
| inasio wrote:
| Luckily we live in a city with ski slopes near us, this
| particular one is in the same health authority we live in, so
| even in lockdown it's been ok to come ski. It's honestly the
| thing that has kept us sane, in retrospect I would have payed
| 10x or more for the family ski pass...
| stef25 wrote:
| Only time I used it was when my phone fell out of my pocket in
| a friend's car when he dropped me at home. Find my phone
| clearly showed where it was, traveling through the city and
| amazingly I could still use WhatsApp desktop to message my
| friend to bring it back. Tech is awesome sometimes.
| movedx wrote:
| > Tech is awesome *sometimes*
|
| :`(
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| The only time I've used Find my Phone was when my house was
| burgled and it was stolen.
|
| Unfortunately, despite being given the exact location, the
| police weren't interested in picking it up. Luckily it was
| only a $100 phone, so I wasn't too concerned about getting it
| back, because nothing good would've come from attempting to
| recover it myself.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| I got mugged on my way home and month later I found that my
| phone was in Nigeria...
| fastball wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFE1232LxWY&t=129s
| dylan604 wrote:
| i'm surprised that you even bothered checking after that
| long, but awesome that you did.
| stunt wrote:
| Testing it has probably been challenging for them during the
| lockdowns and WFH situation.
| kleer001 wrote:
| Ah, more externalization of the human mind. Double edged that.
| babesh wrote:
| 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?
| billyjobob wrote:
| Same with Apple Pencil. No log kept of where it was last seen.
| willio58 wrote:
| They do this. Find My shows the last known location of my
| AirPods, useful when I lose them. Then, if I'm close enough and
| can't see them, I can play a sound on them so I can find them.
| babesh wrote:
| Thanks! They should do so for each one (left and right)?
| JeremyCa wrote:
| Great.. Can they build this into the damn AppleTV remote..
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| There are about 100,000,000 pets in the US.
|
| Apple just printed a $B business by figuring out how to monetize
| pets.
| crazygringo wrote:
| 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.
| tchanglington wrote:
| It's going to be real funny if non Apple users are basically
| fair game for AirTags tracking and you have to get an iPhone to
| protect yourself from AirStalking
| captn3m0 wrote:
| Apparently they can be disabled with any NFC enabled device:
| https://apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apple-introduces-airtag/
|
| >[...] And even if users don't have an iOS device, an AirTag
| separated from its owner for an extended period of time will
| play a sound when moved to draw attention to it. If a user
| detects an unknown AirTag, they can tap it with their iPhone
| or NFC-capable device and instructions will guide them to
| disable the unknown AirTag.
|
| It is better supported on iPhones, but that's acceptable:
|
| >iOS devices can also detect an AirTag that isn't with its
| owner, and notify the user if an unknown AirTag is seen to be
| traveling with them from place to place over time.
|
| I'd like this detection to come in stock Android, similar to
| how the Contact Tracing thing was shared b/w Apple/Google.
| lispnon wrote:
| Can it happen that some smart man open this device and
| disable the speaker and then using it to stalk victim? It
| won't make sound then.
| moooo99 wrote:
| > I'd like this detection to come in stock Android, similar
| to how the Contact Tracing thing was shared b/w
| Apple/Google.
|
| This would be an ideal scenario, even if it took longer to
| roll out for Android phones thanks to the OS fragmentation
|
| Even if that's not happening, I think its not entirely
| unreasonable for some reliable third party app to pop up an
| make disabling the AirTags with an Android device almost as
| easy as an iPhone.
| kelnos wrote:
| ... and if all else fails, you can always whack it with a
| hammer a few times. Or just take its battery out.
| fay59 wrote:
| I'm assuming that instructions to disable the AirTag are
| basically instructions for how to take off the battery.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| You can already purchase a huge range of items that do
| exactly what an airtag does. Everyone is already fair game
| for this type of stalking, it is silly to try and paint apple
| in a bad light here.
| paxys wrote:
| How many of these third party devices can use every iPhone,
| iPad and more in the world as a beacon?
| BoorishBears wrote:
| They don't need to? GSM radios have gotten tiny. Think
| literally any innocuous item and it can be fitted with a
| tracker.
|
| Even a hairbrush:
| http://www.mccalltech.net/images/0TrackBrush.jpg
| angry_octet wrote:
| The limitation of any tracker is battery lifetime. The
| AirTag circumvents this by only using low power
| transmission and the network of all iPhones and iPads in
| the world, which then relay via their own wifi/4G.
|
| What is certain is that we'll see sophisticated
| modifications to AirTags that (1) disable the beep, (2)
| disable anti-stalking.
|
| Theoretically remote attestation and self-disabling anti-
| tamper could be used, but the potential wins for
| bypassing the Apple protocol are enormous, the Holy Grail
| of surveillance espionage.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| "Holy Grail of surveillance espionage"... maybe the holy
| grail alarmist statements.
|
| Why are firmware modifications for this "certain" first
| off?
|
| And what modifications allow this to work as designed
| without setting off anti-stalking? If you somehow change
| the ID it's reporting which afaik is a signed value
| anyways, how are you going to get access to it's
| location?
|
| If you don't disable anti-stalking then this is no better
| than run of the mill GPS trackers which can already run
| for days to weeks
| angry_octet wrote:
| Nation state attacks are certain because of the massive
| payoff if they are successful. Were you asleep when the
| Snowdon NSA leaks happened? [1]
|
| If you can change the ID you can cycle through a list of
| valid IDs. You can even use it for bit rate comms, ~16
| bits an hour or something, which is enough to signal
| events like "number of iDevices in vicinity", or, if
| other hardware is used, step count/hour, which works even
| in GPS denied environments.
|
| The beacon location reported by Find My is generated by
| the reporting phones' GPS/cellular/wifi location system.
|
| Regular GPS trackers have no means to exfil their data.
| They don't work in GPS denied environments (poor inside
| buildings, underground, anywhere a $20 jammer is
| enabled). OCGs routinely use low power GPS jammers now.
| Using GPS or 3G requires much more energy, and 3G is
| easily detected by motivated groups.
|
| So while it might not be great for stalking your
| partner/ex, it is very tempting for professionals.
|
| [1] https://nsa.gov1.info/dni/nsa-ant-catalog/
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| Tile uses everyone with the tile app installed. It's not
| the same by sheer numbers, but it's more than enough that
| if someone slips a tile tracker on you they will know
| where you're at. Or, if someone wants to spend a bit more
| money, not even much more, they can buy a full GPS
| tracker that doesn't need anything to report on it. Apple
| isn't coming out with some groundbreaking spy tech here,
| this is very routine stuff thats been in a small format
| forever. And guess what, none of the existing ones do
| anything to alert anyone of stalking, unlike Apple. I
| don't even like Apple but this is silly.
| katbyte wrote:
| not to mention tile does it without notifying iphones of
| airtags or the beep when moved.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Tile uses everyone with the tile app installed.
| It's not the same by sheer numbers
|
| It's not Apple's "fault" they're more popular but the end
| result is that these AirTags are orders of magnitude more
| potentially dangerous thanks the fact that there are
| orders of magnitude more iDevice users than Tile app
| users.
|
| Imagine I'm some kind of creep looking for victims in a
| club or whatever. I'm planning to accomplish this by
| dropping Tiles into their bags.
|
| Statistically, how many Tiles would I need to buy and
| sneak onto persons in order to have a reasonable chance
| of snaring a victim who just happens to have the Tile app
| installed? 50? 100? 1000? Not impossible, but not
| particularly feasible.
|
| How many AirTags would I need to sneak onto victims?
| Perhaps only _one_ , if they happen to use their phone in
| public and I see it's from Apple -- that's something I
| can tell at a glance, unlike wondering if they have the
| Tile app installed.
| mooman219 wrote:
| I personally don't think anyone is fair game for stalking
| and this device lowering the barrier to entry should be
| discussed, and discussing it shouldn't get the kneejerk
| reaction that they're being painted in a bad light. There
| are plenty of questions here like:
|
| - How does the anti stalking alert in apartment buildings
| or people frequently in close proximity for long periods of
| time?
|
| - Since they considered that this is a risk in the first
| place then are non Apple users are risk here too? Did they
| provide appropriate mitigations for them as well?
|
| - What's the future for the Find My network? It would be
| interesting to standardize and allow for more
| interoperability in the Find My network.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| How is this lowering the barrier? I bought a orbit for my
| keys that does exactly what this does, for cheaper, like
| 3 years ago. I would actually say nothing apple does
| about using this for stalking is useful in the least,
| because if someone wants to stalk you they can get one of
| a dozen devices, for cheaper, that would be better
| because they're not a obvious white and silver apple
| branded monogrammed thing. Noones at risk, because
| everyone already was, apple users included. As for the
| future of it, I think there's already a bike company
| building the find my system into their bikes, so probably
| anything high theft could make its way onto a network
| like this.
| mooman219 wrote:
| Orbit only works with bluetooth on your phone, not the
| entire Find My network. Additionally, I think it's a
| fallacy to say that it's fine for Apple to not consider
| the risks because some other products didn't consider the
| risks.
| wyclif wrote:
| I could see a smaller version of this, without the speaker,
| having some real potential for preventing musical instrument
| theft (especially electric guitars), or at least speeding
| recovery. The AirTag could conceivably be placed in the
| electronics control cavity of the guitar.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Does anti-stalking only work for Apple users? I assume it won't
| notify someone who doesn't have an Apple phone, making it kinda
| useless for half the population.
| crazygringo wrote:
| The article isn't entirely clear, but suggests that it will
| use the network of iOS devices around it and that the AirTag
| will start beeping as well.
|
| Seems like it should be able to detect that it's always
| traveling together with a single Android phone's WiFi signal,
| for example.
| Hitton wrote:
| I wonder how hard would it be to disable beeping. There is
| probably a speaker that can be drilled through.
| ehsankia wrote:
| That kinda kills the whole purpose of the tag, which is
| to beep when you lose it. I guess you can still kinda
| find it with the UWB chip on your iPhone, but that's much
| harder than by sound.
| Hitton wrote:
| Not if you want to use the tag to stalk someone.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Then just just a Tile or some other tracker.
| gruez wrote:
| >And even if users don't have an iOS device, an AirTag
| separated from its owner for an extended period of time will
| play a sound when moved to draw attention to it.
| fomine3 wrote:
| What about to cut wire to speaker?
| 05 wrote:
| Just desolder the speaker.
| drdaeman wrote:
| So, this prevents some legitimate use cases, for example
| putting a tag in a suitcase for the flight, because it'll
| start beeping at some point?
|
| A shame. It would've been cool standing at that conveyor
| belt at the airport and rather than staring at the luggage
| as it comes, being able to sense one's own stuff.
|
| Also, seems that it's not suitable for putting on a cat or
| dog's collar for the same reason.
| crazygringo wrote:
| It doesn't say, but I have to assume that it detects it's
| moving, but moving _together_ with an unrecognized cell
| phone or something -- e.g. picking up a single unchanging
| WiFi signal while most other signals come and go.
|
| Of course, if the person being stalked wasn't carrying a
| cell phone, then this raises the possibility the anti-
| stalking wouldn't be activated.
| gruez wrote:
| Presumably "extended period of time" is several days, not
| several hours.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Probably needs to be more like _minutes._
|
| Think about a stalker dropping a tracker into the
| pocket/bag/etc of their victim.
|
| They slip a tracker in their co-worker's bag at the end
| of the day. Coworker goes home. Attacker knows where they
| live now.
|
| Or, maybe it's a stranger on the bus. Or in a club.
|
| The victim is likely going to be home in less than a few
| hours. Perhaps less than an hour.
| drdaeman wrote:
| That would defeat the purpose of this anti-tracking
| [counter]measure. One would be able to sneak a tag into
| someone's bag (or clothes, or car) and track their
| movement for the whole day. Then get back into tag's
| proximity to reset the timer.
| gruez wrote:
| If your threat model is 1 day, it's pretty hard to use
| that for any sort of "find lost things" product. If I
| forgot my keychain at work, is it going to beep the
| entire night? What if I'm out sick the next day? Is it
| going to annoy all my coworkers for the entire day?
| drdaeman wrote:
| > If I forgot my keychain at work, is it going to beep
| the entire night?
|
| No, I don't think so.
|
| As I understand it, the idea is that AirTags would only
| beep if they detect being moved (probably,
| accelerometer/motion based, as everything else is
| probably energy cost-prohibitive). So, no, a forgotten
| keychain left on a table shouldn't beep on its own,
| unless someone takes it and carries with themselves for
| some time. It shouldn't even beep if your coworker
| notices your keys and moves them to another room for
| safekeeping.
|
| The idea is that it should _eventually_ alert if you put
| a tag in someone 's back pocket and you or they walk
| away.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| > standing at that conveyor belt at the airport
|
| you're not supposed to put batteries in your luggage
| manmal wrote:
| What harm could such a small battery do?
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Also rental gear.
|
| I could see businesses being a lot more willing to loan
| equipment for a trial period if they could put a tag on
| it.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| IDK if they've addressed this feature sufficiently well,
| but I assume phones could ignore airtags when set to
| airplane mode.
| Lunatic666 wrote:
| Maybe this changes when you turn on stolen mode for the tagged
| item.
| jedberg wrote:
| So if you want to stalk someone you put your airtag into
| stolen mode first? Kinda defeats the purpose of the anti-
| stalking feature.
| joshe wrote:
| It would make sense to do the anti stalking notification after
| say 4 days. This would make stalking labor intensive since the
| stalker has to swap tags frequently. So if you leave one in
| someone's car or drop it in a bag, you'd have to steal it back
| and replace it. Also if the stalker is unable to track it down,
| the victim gets notified automatically which makes stalking
| with these much more dangerous for the stalker.
|
| For a stolen item you'd have that much time to track it down.
|
| They could even track if different non-owned tags track the
| same person to stop stalkers diligent enough to swap these
| frequently.
|
| It's an impressively good balancing of usefulness and avoiding
| bad spillover effects.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| It would make sense to do the anti stalking
| notification after say 4 days
|
| "Your privacy and safety are important to Apple. We won't let
| anybody use these devices to stalk you for more than 96
| hours."
|
| You haven't thought this through! Seriously, the use cases
| for 96 hours of tracking are _frightening._
|
| 1. Meet victim in club/bus/supermarket/wherever
|
| 2. Drop AirTag in their bag/pocket/whatever.
|
| 3. Now you know where they live and/or work assuming they go
| to one of those places in the next 96 hours.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Seeing as you can literally give someone a USB cable that
| tracks them, I don't think AirTags are enabling anything
| particularly new: https://www.walmart.com/ip/OURLEEME-Car-
| GPS-Tracker-Vehicle-...
| kelnos wrote:
| That USB cable doesn't work unless it's plugged into
| something that has power.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Yes? Offer someone a USB cable and you've given them a
| GPS tracker that will show their home location
|
| But of course as I linked in another comment, trackers
| have been fit into anything and everything now.
| Hairbrushes, random trinkets like clocks, even a phone
| charging brick itself
| nielsbot wrote:
| Maybe so, but consider the optics...
| adamlett wrote:
| _Seriously, the use cases for 96 hours of tracking are
| frightening._
|
| _Meet victim in club /bus/supermarket/wherever_
|
| I'm not an expert, but I don't think this is how stalking
| works in practice. People don't stalk random strangers they
| meet in the supermarket. They stalk former partners, and
| (more rarely) people they've developed an obsession about.
| That means the stalker has to worry about being recognized
| by the victim, and consequently will have fewer
| opportunities to plant a device and retrieve a device than
| you imagine.
|
| Furthermore, while being tracked for up to 96 hours indeed
| is a frightening thought, the typical stalker's goal is to
| track their victim at all times. Having to plant and
| retrieve a device at least every four days, without being
| detected by the victim, makes for a very impractical way to
| achieve that goal.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I'm not an expert, but I don't think this is how
| stalking works in practice. People don't stalk random
| strangers they meet in the supermarket. They stalk
| former partners, and (more rarely) people they've
| developed an obsession about.
|
| Well, yeah -- I agree 100% that this is _existing_
| predator behavior, and most crimes will continue to be
| committed by a person known to the victim.
|
| However, if not properly safeguarded, this sort of tech
| clearly can enable some new types of bad behavior.
|
| Ultimately I'm a technology optimist and we shouldn't
| reject new tech simply because it might be misused.
| However it's also true that even the most cursory glance
| at history shows us that just about any new technology is
| also used for nefarious purposes.
| adamlett wrote:
| This I agree with. My contention was with what you first
| wrote, which made it seem like the 4 day limit was not
| meaningful. I think it makes all the difference for the
| reasons I laid out.
| pmastela wrote:
| Won't be long before magazines start offering tips on how
| to best avoid getting AirTagged.
| randyrand wrote:
| that sounds like one of those issues everyone worries about
| but never happens.
| Twisell wrote:
| Confirmed by John Gruber
|
| > I talked to folks from Apple today about some of this. The
| timeout period for when an AirTag will play a sound if
| separated from its owner is currently three days -- but
| that's not baked into the AirTags themselves. It's a server-
| side setting in the Find My network, so Apple can adjust it
| if real-world use suggests that three days is too long or too
| short.
|
| > The "NFC-capable device" thing means Android phones.
|
| https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/04/20/moren-fine-
| prin...
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Does this render it useless for anti-theft, then?
|
| The other question is: when presented with evidence of stolen
| property, will the local PD enforce the law and assist with the
| retrieval of said property?
| mikestew wrote:
| That's already been answered. Stories abound about "Find My
| Doohickie said it was at this address. I even knocked on the
| door, and the person that answered said, 'yup, have your
| phone, whatta ya gonna do about it?'. Cops said file it with
| insurance." Cops don't care about a $1000 phone, they're not
| going to care about your bicycle, either (which has also been
| proven on multiple occasions).
| Cu3PO42 wrote:
| Cops cared about my stolen bicycle. They took my report,
| were very happy I brought a copy of the original invoice
| and a few weeks later I had mail informing me they had
| retrieved my bicycle and that I could pick it up. This was
| in Germany, mind you.
| unicornfinder wrote:
| I wish it worked like this in the UK. If memory serves in
| London a motorbike has a 1 in 12 chance of being stolen
| in any given year, and I suspect it's a lot higher for
| bicycles.
|
| To be fair when my bicycle was stolen the police did
| care, but they were quite frank with me about the odds of
| recovery being virtually zero despite having CCTV of the
| incident and the getaway vehicle.
| kenneth wrote:
| Haha, Europe vs. America changes everything.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| That depends on the state you are in. That is how it will
| play out in CA, not at all how it will play out in TX.
| djrogers wrote:
| States can be pretty large and diverse - the town I live
| in in California would have a couple of officers at my
| door in short order if this situation were called in...
| randyrand wrote:
| The do care about stolen vehicles tho. Motorcycle theft is
| a big problem.
| moooo99 wrote:
| AirTags would probably be the cheapest option for
| relatively reliable motorcycle tracking. However, there
| are already devices that can be connected to the bikes
| battery, hence basically run for ages, that also connect
| to GPS and GSM.
|
| Tracking with AirTags assumes the thief (or someone
| closeby) uses an iPhone AND has the 'Fine my' feature
| activated, which is, given how motorcycle thieves operate
| in some areas of the world, is relatively unlikely. So
| you're probably still better off using a GPS+GSM tracker
| pkulak wrote:
| Seems like the anti-stalking thing could take at least a couple
| days? In that case, I'd still love to hide one of these things
| on my bike. If my bike gets stolen, I'll know about it very
| quickly.
| rurp wrote:
| So if a friend lends me some keys with one of these attached
| and I don't have the right kind of phone on me, the keys will
| start beeping incessantly? That seems pretty darn annoying.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Apparently any phone with NFC capability can disable any
| Apple Airtag.
| adamlett wrote:
| So maybe ask your friend to take off the AirTag if you have
| to borrow their keys for more than a few days?
| katbyte wrote:
| i think only if they are marked lost?
| gnicholas wrote:
| No, it's an anti-stalking feature, so it's triggered when
| it's been away from the owner for some unspecified period
| of time, and only when the tag is moved. If someone is
| using AirTags to stalk someone, they would never mark as
| lost, which is why beeping isn't tied to this status.
| Rapzid wrote:
| Just tape over the air holes it needs to transmit the sound
| waves.
| amelius wrote:
| > But the "anti-stalking" feature will notify someone if an
| AirTag they don't own appears to be traveling with them.
|
| Another case of your device working against your interests.
|
| I don't care if you have something to hide or not. This just
| sucks at a fundamental level.
| jfengel wrote:
| I'm not sure it's really Apple's fault. You could do the same
| thing with a Tile or other beacon. That's the entire purpose
| of the device.
|
| Apple's trying to prevent misuse of their device. They want
| you to use it to find your keys, not your ex. If you consider
| that an invalid limitation of your device (by notifying your
| ex that they seem to be carrying an unknown tracker)... well,
| let's just say I disagree.
| drdaeman wrote:
| By attempting to prevent misuse they also prevent some
| legitimate and morally unquestionable uses. Like - the most
| obvious examples already mentioned in the comments -
| finding your cat or tracking your checked baggage. There
| are probably more less obvious use cases where something
| temporarily leaves owner's proximity, does not remain
| stationery, but tracking that object's location is
| perfectly legal and not questionable.
|
| And this can be perceived as - arguably - restrictive and
| user-hostile by some.
| aseipp wrote:
| I'll be blunt: Neither of those use cases are very
| important in comparison, and neither come remotely close
| to justifying AirTags as unlimited tracking devices with
| zero restrictions.
|
| Just go buy some other tracker for your cat or whatever.
| kortilla wrote:
| I'll be blunt: a stalker is going to find tools to do
| stalking without apples help. Far more people just lost
| out on a super easy pet tracker because of a glorified
| "think of the children argument".
| kenneth wrote:
| I care a fuck-ton more about finding my dog if lost than
| my bag. A bag can be replaced with an identical one. A
| dog cannot.
|
| Current GPS collars are absolutely trash (3 day battery
| life, bulky, etc), this would be about 10,000 times
| better if effective. But if it starts beeping randomly
| unprompted and scares the dog, it's a problem.
| hvidgaard wrote:
| A GPS collar and this are two very very different things.
| An AirTag only works if an iPhone is nearby - if your dog
| is lost in the woods so to speak, an AirTag will not help
| you - a GPS collar will.
| kenneth wrote:
| Sure but this is good enough to be useful in many
| situations, whereas a GPS collar is impractical enough
| that it's unlikely to be regularly used. I just wanna
| throw a chip on the 3 dogs collars and forget about it
| except to swap batteries once a year. I don't want to be
| bothered charging active GPS collars every few days and
| putting a heavy device for the dogs to carry.
| hvidgaard wrote:
| I'm sure it's possible to get the best of both worlds,
| it's just that no one have made it yet. An active GPS
| tracker does not have to be larger than a keyfob to your
| car nor does it need to be online all the time. A
| combination where the GPS is only activated once the tag
| has not seen a known device for 1 hour. That should give
| you a battery life measured in years with meter precision
| when it matters.
| drdaeman wrote:
| I don't argue, I'm trying to explain how others may see
| it.
|
| Everyone has their own needs, requirements and ideas
| what's essential and what's not. Importance and
| justifications are subjective matters.
|
| Only thing everyone can certainly agree on that those use
| cases were not deemed important (or even considered) by
| Apple, as they would've designed it differently
| otherwise.
| jfengel wrote:
| All of those usages are permitted and ordinary uses of
| the device. Nothing prevents you from doing that.
|
| As far as I can tell from reading the article, all it
| does is say, "Hey, did you know you've been carrying
| around a tracker that's not yours?" Your cat or your
| luggage don't care if you attach a tracker to them. Your
| ex does.
| duskwuff wrote:
| If the "interest" that you're worried about AirTags "working
| against" is being able to stalk people by attaching trackers
| to them or their belongings -- sincerely, fuck you. It is
| entirely appropriate for Apple to build functionality into
| their products to mitigate this sort of abuse.
| randyrand wrote:
| ....It's alerting thieves that the device they stole is
| being tracked.
|
| That's anti-user. The user is the one trying to do the
| tracking.
| duskwuff wrote:
| And not the user of the phone that is reporting the
| location of those tags to a stalker? Their interests are
| important too.
|
| Anyways, I don't think there was ever any intent for
| AirTags to function as an anti-theft tracking device.
| Anti-theft is much harder to do well than anti-loss
| (which is what Apple is targeting), and is very difficult
| to distinguish from stalkerware for a mass-market
| product.
| roughly wrote:
| > stalkerware for a mass-market product
|
| which is specifically a problem Apple has had with "Find
| My", so it's nice to see them taking it seriously here.
| gofreddygo wrote:
| "Jealous 15 year old uses Apple AirTag to stalk friends"
|
| Vs.
|
| "AirTag notifies bike thief about itself"
|
| For Apple this is a no-brainer.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Not all thieves are smart.
|
| In fact I would hazard to say most are not.
| stunt wrote:
| They don't all have to be smart.
|
| A few smart thieves will share the tricks. Probably many
| smart peoples are even going to try building detector
| devices.
| zxcvgm wrote:
| I too, found the anti-stalking features might hinder the use of
| AirTags for locating intentionally stolen items: (1) it has a
| removable battery, and also (2) "someone can tap [the tag] with
| their iPhone or NFC-capable device and instructions will guide
| them to disable the unknown AirTag".
|
| The anti-stalking feature also seems to contradict its privacy
| features:
|
| > Bluetooth signal identifiers transmitted by AirTag rotate
| frequently to prevent unwanted location tracking.
|
| But also, in the next sentence:
|
| > iOS devices can also detect an AirTag that isn't with its
| owner, and notify the user if an unknown AirTag is seen to be
| traveling with them from place to place over time.
|
| If an AirTag is supposed to be "anonymous", then how can a user
| be informed that this tag has been seen with them over an
| extended period? This would mean that there _is_ a way to
| identify a particular AirTag in the first place.
| randyrand wrote:
| tags rotate identifiers, but only every hour or so.
| billyhoffman wrote:
| A local device like an iPhone has to know what AirTags are
| yours, since they have to guide to back to the beacon. If
| your iPhone notices beacons that appear at multiple
| locations, that aren't yours, it can detect that.
| angry_octet wrote:
| It isn't yet clear how that detection occurs.
| jonfw wrote:
| Apple knows who you are. Apple knows which airtag you're
| near. You don't know which airtag you're near. It seems
| pretty clear that apple can use this information to tell
| if an airtag was placed in your car unbeknownst to you.
| Not sure what the mystery is.
| novok wrote:
| Its private from 3rd parties, but not private from apple and
| whoever subpoenas them.
|
| Apply this principle to everything apple does and says about
| privacy and you see it everywhere in their products.
|
| Even more cynically, you can say it's private from their
| competitors.
| billyhoffman wrote:
| They say in the AirTag video that "Everyone can participate
| without sharing their location with anyone, even Apple"
|
| https://youtu.be/JdBYVNuky1M?t=570
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| So there's a way to track everyone's expensive kit and it
| doesn't require revealing one's identity. Ace.
| conradev wrote:
| That is not true. All locations are encrypted with a public
| key before being uploaded to Apple's servers, and only the
| user's devices (which contain the private key) can decrypt
| the location.
| dhagz wrote:
| Yep, Apple hasn't exactly hidden that's how they do
| privacy. They give you an identifier that makes sense to
| their systems, but won't make sense to other observers.
| They still track you, they just don't tie it to PII (I'm
| assuming there are ways to associate your "anonymous" ID to
| you though, since it's probably wrapped up with iCloud
| stuff somewhere - it would just take an arcane query of
| some sort).
| gleenn wrote:
| I think it's a pretty reasonable response given malls and
| other places were scooping up bluetooth and wifi Mac
| addresses and using them to identify patrons. Sure, only
| Apple knows so it might possibly have some benefit to Apple
| and even less possibly a detriment to competitors, but it
| definitely increases privacy and I find that very
| compelling. Your iPhone/Android already knows where you are
| with location services enabled. I'd rather Apple keep
| everything as private as possible and it's not like their
| getting a huge data gain.
| sjwright wrote:
| > Even more cynically, you can say it's private from their
| competitors.
|
| I've heard this from a few people recently, but I don't
| understand the implied criticism. What _should_ Apple do
| here? Keep my data mostly private but also slip a copy of
| it to Google and Microsoft?
|
| Obviously not. Through the high purchase price of their
| products, I'm paying (and trusting) Apple to manage my
| privacy and keep it private from _everyone else._ The fact
| that "everyone" necessarily includes all of Apple's
| competitors isn't just irrelevant, it's a red herring.
| novok wrote:
| The implied criticism is they should also keep it private
| it from themselves
| sjwright wrote:
| Wherever possible, they've done exactly that--so how is
| that a criticism? Case in point is the end-to-end
| encryption of iMessage. Or the at-rest encryption of iOS
| devices.
|
| In other instances where Apple does have access to your
| data, there is a plausible justification for that access
| and no evidence shown where Apple has _ever_ abused that
| access for commercial gain.
| Angostura wrote:
| "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."
| [deleted]
| dividuum wrote:
| Here's a detailed protocol reverse engineering paper:
| https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.02282.pdf
|
| My guess would be that you, as the tag owner, locally store
| the master beacon key and can use it to derive key required
| to decrypt received beacon payloads for your own tags. You
| can then filter out your own and approximate how many others
| (which you cannot link over time) you permanently see. If it
| is more than one most of the time, you're probably tagged
| without your consent.
| angry_octet wrote:
| But you don't permanently see them, because the ID rolls
| over quite often to prevent tracking the beacon.
|
| Conceivably the beacons co-operate in preventing tracking
| by conversing with iPhones nearby to store a random code
| supplied by the phone for a period of time, and allowing
| any iDevice to ask for the list. If your iDevice sees the
| same random code it transmitted to a stranger beacon appear
| in multiple time periods it knows it is colocated.
|
| I would guess that the colocation feature would allow you
| to track devices actively (tailing someone).
|
| Spies will have to be alert the potential for both exposure
| and tracking. Hopefully Apple commissions Spy Vs Spy ad
| campaigns!
| function_seven wrote:
| My guess was simpler. If the phone sees a random tag for
| 30 minutes, then _coincidentally_ that tag disappears but
| a new one shows up--for 30 minutes--and this keeps
| happening, then it 's probably the same tag that's
| following you around. Especially if it's always about _X_
| meters away, or whatever.
|
| Random tags passing by wouldn't maintain the same
| distance or RSSI, and they wouldn't be spaced perfectly
| apart in time either.
|
| Of course I'm making assumptions here about the key
| rotation frequency, or even if it's a regular intervals.
| I guess if you're spending a lot of time in crowds, the
| rotating beacon that's with you would be hard to pick out
| of the myriad other beacons coming within range all the
| time. ("Was that a key rotation, or another person?")
| angry_octet wrote:
| I can see how that might work, but signal reception is
| always noisy. I doubt RSSI would be a reliable measure.
| You could partially wrap the AirTag in a scrunch of
| alfoil and it would mean every movement of the phone
| would massively change the reception, it would look like
| a variable distance.
|
| Also, I wonder if it is a fixed time with no overlap?
| Because you could certainly track someone, eg through a
| shopping centre, by seeing when a beacon turns off and
| then listening to new beacons. Correlation would be
| trivial. And if the e.g. 30m clock is accurate then you
| could reidentify hours later by just listening to the
| rollover time, so they would have to vary the rollover at
| least.
|
| I wonder about false alarms, because you can easily sit
| on commuter train for an hour and have someone next to
| you, even more so for long distance travel.
| mooman219 wrote:
| This seems like a problematic situation. In a vacuum I can
| see how they want to mitigate the stalking risks, but as of
| right now, unless you have a recently updated Apple device
| then, then you're completely ignored by the stalking
| mitigations. There's nothing official from Apple on the
| Google Play store that would mitigate that situation as
| well. This just seems like a low barrier to entry stalking
| tool on the extreme side of use cases for people Apple
| doesn't have business interests with.
| katbyte wrote:
| I presume the location info is only collected if its
| marked as "lost" - at which point if the tag connects to
| apples network via someones phone, it'll prompt them. If
| its marked "lost" and sending location with no iphone
| nearby and is moved it beeps.
|
| The stalking potential is greatly reduced if the victim
| has an android as the location will only be sent when its
| detected by an iphone.
| angry_octet wrote:
| The location information is updated whenever it is seen
| by an iDevice. The iDevice participates in this without
| its user's explicit permission or knowledge.
|
| If the stalkee has an android they will never know. Their
| position will be snitched by every iDevice they come
| near.
| angry_octet wrote:
| From the Heinrich et al.paper:
|
| "Lost devices. Devices that determine to be in a lost
| state start sending out BLE advertisements with a public
| key to be discovered by finder devices. Devices are
| considered to be lost when they lose Internet
| connectivity.
|
| Third-party accessories [6] are small battery-powered
| devices that can be attached to a personal item and are
| set up through an owner device.
|
| Accessories are determined to be lost when they lose
| their BLE connection to the owner device. Finder devices.
|
| Finder devices form the core of the OF network. As of
| 2020, only iPhones and iPads with a GPS module are
| offering finder capabilities. Finder devices can discover
| lost devices and accessories by scanning for BLE
| advertisements. Upon receiving an OF advertisement, a
| finder creates an end-to-end encrypted location report
| that includes its current location and sends it to
| Apple's servers."
|
| Elsewhere, it is clear that this operates even when
| flight mode is enabled.
|
| If you can't stand criticism of Apple, please fuck off
| back to reddit and fanboi there.
| kelnos wrote:
| I thought I read that the tag itself will start beeping
| if it's not near its owner for too long, and the tag has
| been moving around? Not sure what "too long" means, but
| if it's short enough, that should foil stalking attempts
| if the potential stalkee doesn't have an iDevice.
|
| Edit: looks like it doesn't start beeping for three days
| (though Apple can change this server-side if they decide
| three days was a bad choice), which seems like _way_ too
| long. A stalker could probably make good use of this in
| just a few hours, let alone three days.
| [deleted]
| crazygringo wrote:
| AirTags are anonymous _to other end users_.
|
| Obviously Apple is _internally_ maintaining an association
| between the AirTag 's permanent identifier, and its current
| temporary signal identifier.
|
| This isn't E2EE or anything.
| mercutio2 wrote:
| Huh? It certainly is E2EE.
|
| "Whether attached to a handbag, keys, backpack, or other
| items, AirTag taps into the vast, global Find My network1
| and can help locate a lost item, all while keeping location
| data private and anonymous with end-to-end encryption."
| crazygringo wrote:
| Is the E2EE applying to the Bluetooth ID's?
|
| I think it's referring to other aspects of the system --
| this sentence is specifically referring to _location
| data_ , not Bluetooth ID's.
|
| In any case, my point remains that obviously Apple has to
| be internally associating the Bluetooth ID's with owner
| ID's.
| blep-arsh wrote:
| They aren't. The tag generates and broadcasts a public
| key that is rotated every 15 minutes. A nearby "finder"
| device receives a broadcast, encrypts its location with
| the received key and sends it with a hash of the public
| key to Apple's anonymous location directory. The owner
| (who keeps the same key pair rotation algorithm running
| from the same seed key) can look up a bunch of key hashes
| for a range of 15-minute intervals and then fetch and
| decrypt location payloads. No device or account IDs are
| transmitted in the process.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Ah ha, got it, thanks -- I was definitely incorrect then.
| Wish I could edit my original comment to say "never mind"
| but the edit window passed.
| omegaworks wrote:
| Even with E2EE it makes sense that it is still possible
| to differentiate "registered, known" tags from "unknown"
| tags. Unknown tags won't reveal any information about who
| owns them, but they will still transmit on the same
| frequencies and with the same protocol as your air tags.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| "Your AirTag sends out a secure Bluetooth signal that can
| be detected by nearby devices in the Find My network. These
| devices send the location of your AirTag to iCloud -- then
| you can go to the Find My app and see it on a map. The
| whole process is anonymous and encrypted to protect your
| privacy. And it's efficient, so there's no need to worry
| about battery life or data usage."
|
| "Only you can see where your AirTag is. Your location data
| and history are never stored on the AirTag itself. Devices
| that relay the location of your AirTag also stay anonymous,
| and that location data is encrypted every step of the way.
| So not even Apple knows the location of your AirTag or the
| identity of the device that helps find it."
|
| So no, Apple actively doesn't want to know anything. I'd
| wager a guess that the airtag query system is using the
| same kind of method as the COVID tracker API.
| 0x426577617265 wrote:
| This would also reduce the amount of received legal
| process from LE agencies, since data is not accessible by
| Apple.
| soapdog wrote:
| I don't think it ever claimed to be anti-theft. It is more
| focused on "finding something you misplaced" than being a
| security tracking device.
| spoonjim wrote:
| The anti-stalking feature seems to be... preventing someone
| from tracking your movements with an AirTag? I don't get it.
| fencepost wrote:
| Several factors play into it - how much is it used for 'lost'
| vs 'stolen(?)' as well as 'if stolen, by someone savvy enough
| to be checking for tags?' and 'if stolen how long before anti-
| stalking alerts? Does it alert during daily commutes on the
| same train? Only after 2+ hours? 3+?'
| gnicholas wrote:
| This is a good question. I wonder what the period of time is
| required before it notifies you about potential stalking. If it
| is more time than would typically take for someone to realize
| that the item is stolen, then perhaps it's not such a big deal.
| But if it's only 30 minutes or so, a thief could be notified
| that they've stolen a bicycle that's being tracked before you
| come out of the grocery store, movie theater, etc.
|
| A related question: can you geofence an airtag so that you are
| notified if an item leaves an area without you? This could be
| especially helpful for things like bikes that you would park
| for long periods of time and would want to know if they're
| being moved by someone other than you.
| [deleted]
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| 30 minutes seems totally infeasible. People hang out for 30
| minutes all the time.
| gnicholas wrote:
| The anti-stalking warning is only triggered if the airtag
| isn't near the owner.
| [deleted]
| SergeAx wrote:
| That's super-important, and also will dramatically raise sales
| of iPhones among petty thieves.
| OkGoDoIt wrote:
| I wonder how this works in practice? My main use for an AirTag
| would be to put on my cat's collar. But if it starts beeping
| randomly that's going to be a problem.
| CraneWorm wrote:
| please, just keep your cat at home
| manmal wrote:
| It would only start beeping if the cat stays away from your
| iPhone's BLE range for 3 days. I've also thought of doing
| this, but my cats absolutely hate collars.
| nerfhammer wrote:
| desolder the speaker or piezo.
| neuronic wrote:
| Please, if possible, do not put collars on cats :(
|
| If they're outside they can get gravely injured as they pass
| through the smallest holes and cracks. There are very NSFL
| images of resulting injuries. The collars often lead to
| suffocation or very bloody scenes - no matter how well they
| seem to fit.
|
| https://www.pdsa.org.uk/taking-care-of-your-pet/looking-
| afte...
| fingerlocks wrote:
| Breakaway collars are standard at the pet shops near me.
| Having a bell on a collar seriously hinders a cat's ability
| to hunt birds and other wildlife, which is a huge problem
| in some places.
| abestic9 wrote:
| And a solution in places like New Zealand, where cats are
| harming the native bird populations.
| FateOfNations wrote:
| Apple's response would be that AirTag isn't designed for that
| use case, and that you should purchase a "Find My network
| enabled" collar for your cat from a third party (it's only a
| matter of time...)
| Spivak wrote:
| I actually kinda doubt this situation would happen because
| it would be a little silly if you could bypass the anti-
| stalking protection just by buying a 3rd party device.
| gruez wrote:
| >Does this render it useless for anti-theft, then?
|
| It's hard to make tracking devices hidden. They need to phone
| home, so that means they emit a signal. Someone can sniff that
| out using a RF detector. that's why tracking devices tend to be
| integrated into the product itself (eg. into the ECU for cars,
| or part of the CPU/motherboard for computers).
| inasio wrote:
| It's much easier to have a phone that will easily tell you if
| there is AirTag around you than having an RF detector.
| gruez wrote:
| A RF detector costs $15-$25 shipped from china. If RF anti-
| theft devices become common (either the GSM or the
| bluetooth variety), I'm sure it'll be part of a thief's
| toolkit.
| Voline wrote:
| The majority of bike thieves in Portland are not going to
| buy a $15-$20 RF detector because that would have to come
| out of their meth budget. They are not a tech-savvy lot.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I suspect some posters are imagining bike thieves as part
| of some kind of international black market for high end
| bikes...maybe that exists but 99% of bike thefts are done
| by the local crackhead who either wants a ride or wants
| to trade it for $20 for some crack or meth.
| toxik wrote:
| A bike thief isn't going to go rf sniffing
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| not yet. If a significant portion of otherwise theft-
| friendly bikes have trackers, I don't see why they wouldn't
| learn to, someone would probably even commoditize the
| sniffing tech to sell to other thiefs.
| dustinmoris wrote:
| > not yet. If a significant portion of otherwise theft-
| friendly bikes have trackers, I don't see why they
| wouldn't learn to, someone would probably even
| commoditize the sniffing tech to sell to other thiefs.
|
| They wouldn't because we already have TONS of historical
| data that thieves don't do that.
|
| I am a motorcycle lover and like every owner of a nice
| bike I know that apart from properly chaining your bike
| down the single most effective way of retrieving your
| bike back is by having a tracker on it. In fact some
| insurance companies give a big discount if you have a
| professionally mounted tracker on your bike.
|
| History has shown that despite motorcycles being worth
| 10-20k thieves still don't go through the effort of
| locating and removing a GPS tracker. What they do is the
| following... they steal your bike and only move it like
| 10 streets further away from its original location into
| some hidden dark dead end alley where no person would
| normally go and where the owner wouldn't find it by
| accident. Then they leave it there standing for like 2
| weeks and if nobody comes to pick it up within those 2
| weeks then they know there is no GPS tracker at which
| point they can safely take it back to their garage where
| it gets dismantled into and rebuild. Otherwise they risk
| of having their garage being exposed.
|
| Now you might ask why only take it 10 streets further
| away? Because the easiest way is to cut a chain or some
| poor security and then wheel it down the road for 5
| minutes. Only two weeks later they come with a proper
| vehicle to transport it away.
|
| So if professional thieves can't be bothered (or is just
| practically too difficult) to locate a tracker then I'm
| sure normal opportunistic thieves won't be able either.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| I guess bicycles thieves are either savvier or have an
| easier job.
|
| Their modus operandi is to throw a bicycle into a truck
| or van, move them in lots of fifty across state lines,
| and tear them down to components.
|
| Any trackers will be quickly rendered useless once
| they're in the van, and immediately found and discarded.
|
| I'm definitely planning on getting Airtags for my bikes,
| but mostly for amusement and occasionally forgetting
| where I parked, I don't have much faith in them as an
| anti-theft device.
| filoleg wrote:
| >I guess bicycles thieves are either savvier or have an
| easier job.
|
| They do have an easier job, I think, given that bicycles
| don't usually weigh between 400lb (sports motorcycles)
| and 900lb (cruisers).
| 05 wrote:
| > Any trackers will be quickly rendered useless once
| they're in the van
|
| You can build a custom LoRa based tracker with 100+km
| range (line of sight), a van won't disable that. You'll
| have to use signal triangulation, though, because GPS
| reception in a van won't be great.
| ac29 wrote:
| You need elevation to get line of sight at 100km+. On
| flat ground, the curvature of the earth will block your
| signal.
| l8rlump wrote:
| Any recommended further reading on the LoRa solution?
| 05 wrote:
| The easiest way to implement that would be using a
| Crossfire Diversity Nano receiver [1] with a backup
| battery. It supports GPS out of the box, directly
| connectable to the receiver.
|
| For a custom solution, ExpressLRS [2] is an open source
| system that can be flashed to FrSky R9mm receivers that
| you can hack on to add features you want. Or buy Semtech
| [3] and ESP32 modules and build your own hardware to
| maximize transmit power (standard hobby receivers only
| have 25-40mW telemetry)
|
| PS. TTGO LORA32 modules [4] already have ESP32 and
| Semtech module assembled, only need flashing (again,
| lower power than a dedicated 30dbm module)
|
| [1] https://www.team-
| blacksheep.com/products/prod:xf_nano_div_rx
|
| [2] https://github.com/ExpressLRS/ExpressLRS
|
| [3] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002116232826.html
|
| [4] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000010599226.html
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Hint: tight up under the Brooks saddle with hot glue.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| Heck, my B17 is worth more than one of my bikes.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| yeah, I'm gonna do that short term, and looking into a
| 3D-printed mount that clamps onto the rails for the long
| term
|
| still kind of silly since a saddle is an easily stolen
| part
| themaninthedark wrote:
| What they do makes sense from a risk point of view.
| Trackers are various shapes, sizes and can be mounted
| different ways, if they miss one they blow their
| operation. Easier to delay payoff by 2 weeks.
|
| The difference between the GPS and these tags is they
| actively respond to bluetooth. If you can sniff the
| bluetooth traffic then you would be able to detect them
| easily?
| mNovak wrote:
| In the reverse case, I recall seeing some articles that
| thieves will use bluetooth sniffers to identify valuables
| (e.g. cellphones without the BT turned off) in cars, to
| steal.
|
| Seems feasible that having a sniffer for fancy apple
| trackers could locate some potentially valuable things to
| steal.
| kjakm wrote:
| I thought it was intended for lost items rather than stolen
| items. I've had my phone stolen multiple times and thieves know
| exactly what to do to prevent 'find my' activating. I'm sure it
| wouldn't take them long to find/disable AirTags either.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Yes but you know a phone can be tracked.
|
| If it's someone's backpack or leather jacket, it won't be
| obvious in any way if there's an AirTag slid deep into some
| pocket.
|
| Sure a professional thief might check, but plenty of things
| are stolen casually by people who simply see something lying
| around.
| unicornfinder wrote:
| On the upside as long as you have Find My iPhone activated
| when you _did_ have the phone it doesn 't have a huge amount
| of value to the thief, particularly on newer models where
| individual components can't even be swapped without issues.
| randyrand wrote:
| It's for both.
| gruez wrote:
| >I've had my phone stolen multiple times and thieves know
| exactly what to do to prevent 'find my' activating. I'm sure
| it wouldn't take them long to find/disable AirTags either.
|
| ...putting it in a faraday bag? Since tags are cheap, they
| can even smash it.
| yborg wrote:
| This isn't really complicated, just remove the battery.
| jxi wrote:
| Can't remove batteries from iPhones, or most phones these
| days.
| shuckles wrote:
| Vanmoof seems to have adopted the Find My spec and integrated
| it into their bike hardware itself. AirTag is for lost items.
| Hardware manufacturers can build Find My support into their
| product to defend against stolen items. I'd guess that's the
| strategy.
| lylecheatham wrote:
| I still think Tile lost out on a gigantic market by not
| making it easier for hardware manufacturers to integrate into
| their ecosystem.
|
| They should have been practically begging oems to embed it.
| FabHK wrote:
| Yes, and they refuse (apparently) to join Apple's Find My,
| and instead want users to install their Tile app (and their
| tags are then only findable by users that have the Tile app
| installed). They want to own the entire relationship, but I
| think here they'll lose out.
| manmal wrote:
| They might still capture the (worldwide way larger)
| Android market.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| SilverRed wrote:
| The future is having most items with built in tags. So yeah,
| your iphone tells you the bike you stole is tracking you but
| its not realistic to remove the tracker from it so you have to
| dump the bike.
| pmastela wrote:
| The future is here [1]:
|
| > Available from today (April 7, 2021), the latest VanMoof S3
| & X3 bikes will work with Apple's Find My app, which means
| you can track your ride securely using the vast and global
| Find My network, made up of hundreds of millions of Apple
| devices. With the new Items tab in the Find My app, you can
| locate your bike on a map from your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
|
| 1: https://www.vanmoof.com/blog/en/find-my-bike
| warmwaffles wrote:
| Sounds like a strong degauss tool would render that
| useless.
| dazbradbury wrote:
| 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!
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Can't be done, since the Android ecosystem is too fragmented.
| This only works because Apple controls all the devices and the
| backend.
|
| Samsung will release the STag soon though :)
| koolba wrote:
| 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?).
| p49k wrote:
| No they won't - read the article. Numerous protections against
| it being used as a "secret tracer"
| smiley1437 wrote:
| It's such a powerful tracking device that it has to be nerfed
| to be sold.
|
| Because too many people's first thought is to stalk\track
| people secretly.
|
| Technology isn't the problem, people are!
| mandeepj wrote:
| I'm thinking about placing it inside my car
| dangom wrote:
| Yes - especially curious if it works in 3D, e.g., in a parking
| garage.
| flowerlad wrote:
| I was thinking the same thing. Can AirTag help me find my car
| if I forgot where I parked?
| mandeepj wrote:
| Absolutely. I believe it'll find anything where it's placed -
| shoes, rackets, dog etc
| djrogers wrote:
| Your iPhone can do that on it's own if you connect it to a
| bluetooth or CarPlay headset when you're in the car... It
| will remember where you are when you disconnect from it and
| tag it on the map for you.
|
| [1]https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/find-your-parked-
| car-...
| k_sze wrote:
| 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.
| osynavets wrote:
| 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
| tomjen3 wrote:
| On the other hand, a lost bag containing a laptop would result
| in the use of a lot of materials if you wanted to replace it +
| contents.
| [deleted]
| tonoto wrote:
| 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.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I wonder if Apple has access to APIs that they will not provide
| Tile.
|
| If so, they might be in a legal grey area.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| 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.
| josho wrote:
| I have keys, yet I don't consider it a large enough problem to
| spend $30 to solve.
|
| However, once covid ends I would consider buying one of these
| for my laptop bag.
| nirav72 wrote:
| I wonder how many people are going to tag their idevices with
| these.
| rcpt wrote:
| 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.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| I wouldn't be able to hunt my own mammoth, and I know that I
| suck at making fire with primitive tools (I tried and failed).
|
| I've learned to appreciate the benefits of a modern society,
| and I'm ok being pretty screwed if it all magically disappeared
| without a trace.
|
| We adapt, and that's a good thing.
| just-ok wrote:
| Eh, losing your sense of direction due to the crutch of GPS
| isn't adaptation; it's regression. Not all of us are okay
| with being screwed if the convenient floor of modern life
| fell out from underneath us. :)
| darepublic wrote:
| Assuming the resources previously spent on those other
| things is wisely used it might be advantageous
| cesarvarela wrote:
| A world where GPS stops working is into some serious shit,
| I guess you are also training your hunting and fighting
| skills, otherwise you'll be screwed anyway.
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| > I guess you are also training your hunting and fighting
| skills
|
| I haven't been in a fight in close to a decade, but it's
| not uncommon that I have to get somewhere and don't have
| access to GPS or Google Maps.
|
| It's more than just a redundant skill. There's evidence
| to suggest that our reliance on GPS has a negative effect
| on our hippocampus, in particular our spatial memory. I
| have a gut feeling the effect is more wide ranging than
| we'd think; spatial navigation is a problem solving
| exercise, involving a whole bunch of different mental
| processes.
| agogdog wrote:
| Not the world: just you. Batteries die. People get lost.
| A basic sense of direction makes the world of difference.
| DanHulton wrote:
| I've never been able to remember street names. GPS was a
| godsend to me, because now I can actually navigate.
|
| I certainly wouldn't go so far as to claim I was disabled,
| but I find it helps to remember that not everyone has the
| same capabilities, and what we consider to be a silly
| "crutch" can be tremendously empowering for others without
| our capabilities.
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| I don't think many people are good at remembering, and
| navigating by, street names. It's an unnatural way to
| navigate. For millennia, we navigated using landmarks and
| other relative phenomena.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| Actually knowing the streets is better these days since a
| majority of drivers are using the same mapping system, which
| will reroute them all onto the same new path in case of an
| obstacle or accident and cause more traffic.
|
| If you actually know the streets and see a traffic issue on
| your map, you'll come out ahead.
| kfajdsl wrote:
| Specifically with learning street names and layouts, a big
| benefit goes hand in hand with using GPS imo: when I start
| directions to a new place, I can quickly glance at the map
| and pretty much know what I need to do for most of the trip.
| This saves me from having to constantly eye my phone or
| making split second lane changes because Google waits till
| you're right at a turn to tell you :S
| fighterpilot wrote:
| My question is, are we losing critical tools that would
| otherwise be helpful, or are we freeing up bandwidth for other
| things that are more useful and relevant in modern times?
|
| I also couldn't read a map to save my life but I'm not sure if
| this is a loss (lacking this abstract tool) or a win
| (opportunity cost wise).
| [deleted]
| gerash wrote:
| Same experience here. I installed a key hook so where my keys
| are is now known but I'm gonna have a hard time finding my
| wallet when Tile's battery run out.
|
| Same for street navigation. Whenever I drive somewhere I
| usually can't afford to waste time learning the roads but on my
| way back I close Google maps and try to find my way back home
| which helps.
| psychomugs wrote:
| Technology extends but also amputates.
|
| https://stream.syscoi.com/2019/05/30/marshall-mcluhan-extens...
| harperlee wrote:
| I still remember landline phone numbers from my primary school
| friends more than 20 years later. Yet I don't know their mobile
| phone numbers that I use now. It feels funny, but it is not an
| issue.
| SilverRed wrote:
| This kind of thing would be incredible built in to expensive
| portable electronics. My bf recently lost his very expensive
| sony earbuds while on holiday and once its not in the hotel
| room or your bags, its basically gone. The most likely
| situation is it was at one of the public transport lost item
| collections but calling up everywhere we had been was too much
| work.
|
| Airtags would have found them most likely.
| ghaff wrote:
| The challenge is that you need a.) an easy way to attach in
| some manner which doesn't work very well on a small product
| and b.) you need to be able to triage what small subset of
| things you really want to track.
|
| Yes, building in helps. Though it probably opens up a variety
| of privacy/security failure modes.
| dstaley wrote:
| Fun fact: Tile actually partners with device manufacturers to
| embed Tile into their products. For example, the Skullcandy
| Crusher Evo wireless headphones have Tile built-in.
|
| https://www.skullcandy.com/crusher-evo-wireless-headphones
| bytesmith wrote:
| I use a cheap rubber case for my AirPods that has a little
| loop for a keyring that I use to attach a Tile to [0]. It's a
| little bulky compared to the naked case but it has a few of
| advantages.
|
| First, it allows you to say "find my AirPods" to your phone
| and the Siri shortcut will launch the tile app and ring your
| AirPods. Second, the silicon is really grippy so it's far
| less likely to fall out of your pockets, and third the
| keychain ring means I can store it on a keyhook by the door
| which is my system for not loosing my keys in the first
| place, and usually obviates the need for the Tile:)
|
| I do agree that having the UWB transmitter built into the
| case would be better provided it doesn't require the case
| having charge to work, which isn't always going to be true.
|
| [0] https://imgur.com/a/xTGpTOC
| billyhoffman wrote:
| I can't wait for an AirTag-enabled AirPods case! I misplace
| that often.
| gnicholas wrote:
| The AirPods case can already be tracked, but annoyingly you
| can't make it make a sound. If you leave a single AirPod
| out, you can make it make a sound, but for me this is
| useless because I always misplace the case (with AirPods
| inside). I don't see why it's not possible to have the
| AirPods make noise from within the case. I understand the
| sound would be muffled by the case itself, but that's still
| better than nothing!
| SilverRed wrote:
| Can they be tracked? Every time I try, the map location
| is seriously out of date
| gnicholas wrote:
| Instructions here: https://support.apple.com/en-
| us/HT207581
| [deleted]
| puttycat wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Looked a bit big to me for a cat, but maybe it's lighter than
| it looks.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| 11g says the spec sheet, just shy of the weight of a AAA
| battery. Maybe too heavy for a small cat?
| duskwuff wrote:
| This isn't suitable for pets. The crowdsourced Bluetooth
| tracking will only really work for objects which will stay in
| one place when lost -- which pets are notorious for not doing.
|
| For finding a lost pet, you really want something with cell
| reception and a GPS for real-time location. There's a number of
| products which specifically provide this, like the Whistle dog
| tag. Unfortunately, they're bulkier and require relatively
| frequent charging, but that's the price you pay for that
| functionality.
| toddh wrote:
| Unfortunately Whistle doesn't work in areas with poor
| coverage. And then there's the battery issues. A tag would at
| least be a good redundancy solution.
| duskwuff wrote:
| AirTags depends on other users with iOS devices to track
| devices out of range of your phone. If you're in an area
| with limited to no cell coverage, there probably aren't
| many people wandering around with iOS devices either --
| especially not ones with cell connectivity to upload the
| locations where they spotted your tag.
| toddh wrote:
| That does get to an issue I was wondering about: how long
| does it remember and does it associate each ping with a
| geo tag?
|
| We live the mountains with poor coverage and a dog who at
| one time was a wizard at escaping and getting lost.
|
| Yet we do have people all around, so I think the iphone
| solution would work, even if it was delayed. At least I
| would have an idea of where to start searching. I bought
| every lower than professional level device and they all
| just didn't work here.
| rhodysurf wrote:
| Whistle is pretty good tho and I have been really happy with
| the functionality for the price.
| randyrand wrote:
| in lost mode the tracking frequency goes to real time.
| post_break wrote:
| What, no. It literally shows the device on the map moving
| from ping to ping in san francisco on the airtags website.
| speg wrote:
| What are the odds your pet will be within range of an iOS
| device?
|
| Perhaps intermittently if in a busy urban environment,
| quickly heading to nil if in a more rural area.
| post_break wrote:
| The alternative is none, so I'd rather take the chance.
| shoto_io wrote:
| Yeah I guess it's time for dogs to have their own
| iPhones.
| beckman466 wrote:
| iDog?
| limaoscarjuliet wrote:
| I used tractive. It is bulky and requires daily charging
| making it not so good for cats. I will likely play with Air
| Tag, as my cats usually travel in highly populated areas, so
| they should be seen by many people.
| psychometry wrote:
| Would you like to hear the lecture about why cats should be
| kept indoors now? Or have you already heard and ignored it
| many times?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Would you like to hear the reasons to let cats outside,
| or have you already heard and ignored them many times?
| psychometry wrote:
| I'd actually like to hear one good reason, sure.
| limaoscarjuliet wrote:
| :-) I think the cats need the lecture more than I do.
| Seriously though, the scientific community seems to be
| split on the subject. Cats clearly prefer outside for
| approx. half of the time, the other half eating and
| sleeping at home. I own a house with huge garden, doors
| are open, cats are where they want to be.
| ambivalents wrote:
| This was my first thought. Is there any downside to putting one
| on my dog?
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| > And even if users don't have an iOS device, an AirTag
| separated from its owner for an extended period of time will
| play a sound when moved to draw attention to it.
|
| I think there is no way to disable that feature, and that's
| by design.
|
| Depends on how much distance is "separation" I guess, and how
| close you stick to your dog at all times, heh.
| crazysim wrote:
| The anti anti stalking crowd will probably just jam a pin
| or pen into the speaker and permanently disable it,
| rhplus wrote:
| The removable battery might be a problem if it's easily
| dislodged by scratching at a the collar.
| andrewmunsell wrote:
| No cell/GPS, so it won't track your dog if it gets lost in
| the forest or something. There are other (bulkier) trackers
| if you live in those sorts of areas, but otherwise I have a
| Tile on my dog's leash right now just to keep tabs on where
| she is when she's with a trusted caretaker like my parents.
| I'll probably switch it to an AirTag now because the network
| will have better coverage
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| As with many things in life though it would be better than
| nothing since there are scenarios when it will help you
| find your dog.
| millerm wrote:
| Yeah, a lot of people applying the Nirvana fallacy here.
| lucasverra wrote:
| "It won't work after 72 hours of losing your dog while
| doing a space expedition on Mars!"
| azinman2 wrote:
| The Whistle works quite well. And if your dog is somewhere
| where no other iPhone's are around, it'll still work.
| burlesona wrote:
| The "commercial" they used to introduce this during the event was
| hilarious and awesome:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbApA2JLZ_c
| rkuykendall-com wrote:
| Reminded me of the Hello Tomorrow commercial by Adidas / Spike
| Jonze / Karen O:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbBNScrYN10
| nultxt wrote:
| speaking of Spike Jonze, Apple, and commercials, it also
| kinda reminded me of the (brilliant) Spike Jonze-
| Anderson.Paak-FKA Twigs homepod commercial
|
| https://youtu.be/k70OczvX45k
| dansimau wrote:
| Also a must watch is the making of:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go6Hpal8fUA
|
| Incredible that the set ran on hydraulics and actually
| stretched.
| xyzwave wrote:
| I interpreted the end as "took psychedelic mushrooms and lost
| your keys? AirTag's got your back".
|
| But maybe that's just me.
| [deleted]
| DarrisMackelroy wrote:
| The ipod nano lost in the couch was also a funny little easter
| egg
| valtism wrote:
| This is the official trailer, not the lower quality re-upload
| you posted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckqvG0Rj35I
| burlesona wrote:
| Thanks, I don't think this video was available when I posted
| :)
| rootbear wrote:
| The music is a strange, interesting riff on the _Aquarium_
| movement of Saint-Saens ' _Carnival of the Animals_ , not the
| usual Apple modern pop stuff.
| burlesona wrote:
| Yeah I loved that, it really fit the notion of being lost,
| swimming in the space under your couch cushions haha :)
| phil294 wrote:
| Which in turn sounds a lot like and reminds me of "Rage
| over a lost penny" by Beethoven:
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=5HjwDih-WtQ
| zelly wrote:
| 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.
| jonplackett wrote:
| $29 for the AirTag. _Another_ $29 for the case...?
| djrogers wrote:
| Or $12 for the Belkin one, or $3 for the inevitable amazon
| knockoff....
| smiley1437 wrote:
| I'm sure you'll be able to buy Airtag holders on Aliexpress for
| $1.
|
| Then you just have to wait 6 weeks for shipping
| coryking wrote:
| Or there will be a ton of them on thingiverse to 3d print...
| mc32 wrote:
| WoZ[1] realized.
|
| Wasn't wheels of Zeus a similar idea way back when, just never
| executed?
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheels_of_Zeus
| soheil wrote:
| 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?
| theshrike79 wrote:
| If your cat is walking freely around the streets of Palo Alto,
| there already is a hazard you're accepting.
|
| Adding a $30 device to your cat doesn't make the cat markedly
| more at risk.
| soheil wrote:
| Yes, but at the same time you have pointedly increased the
| marginal risk of the cat being stolen.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Steps of preventing cat theft:
|
| 1) keep cat indoors
|
| There is no step 2.
| justapassenger wrote:
| 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.
| wallwarp wrote:
| I do wish it would've been open-sourced and used cross-
| platform.
|
| also > that's utilizing api and privileges that others cannot
|
| Apple is allowing third party device makers to integrate with
| the find my system. What's the difference between apple
| justapassenger wrote:
| There's much more than just find my. For a start, other apps
| can't really run in background, and can't get reliable access
| to location, that's crucial for something like this (even if
| you allow app to access your location, iOS will still keep on
| asking users periodically to disable it).
|
| All of those things are done for good of the platform, to
| limit abuse form other apps, sure. But it's also conveniently
| giving apple's products unfair advantage.
| enahs-sf wrote:
| Am I the only person thinking of the malicious use cases of
| tagging things that don't belong to you?
| gorbypark wrote:
| There are built in protections for this exact situation. It
| seems that if an airtag is away from its owner and appears to
| be "following" someone else, then that person will be alerted
| about the tag that appears to be following them. This requires
| the followed person to have an iOS device, but it will beep to
| alert someone audibly as well.
| DennisMaHa wrote:
| 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
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| > 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?
| setr wrote:
| From the sounds of it, the "network" is just picking up ambient
| Bluetooth noise (which is constantly pinging around to find new
| connections, communicate, maintain existing connections, etc);
| the only way to stop tracking is to shut down Bluetooth
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| Page 139-142 has information you might be interested in
|
| https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1902/en_US/app...
| frabjoused wrote:
| 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.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| It's a bluetooth beacon, devices see it, send its ID to the
| cloud along with the location.
|
| (+ privacy and encryption ofc)
| terramex wrote:
| They connect to any iOS device in the area over Bluetooth and
| use its internet connection to communicate with AirTag's owner
| iCloud account.
| limaoscarjuliet wrote:
| My cats will get tagged first. I used a gps tracker on them, but
| that was not reliable.
| resfirestar wrote:
| 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.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Modern Bluetooth does not drain batteries. How do you think
| they can run a tag on a button cell for a year?
| resfirestar wrote:
| Was referring to my phone's battery life, not the battery on
| the Tiles themselves. Could have been location services usage
| as well as Bluetooth, and to be fair to Tile they have rolled
| out a lot of updates to the Android app since I stopped using
| it, many of them promising reduced background battery usage.
| duskwuff wrote:
| Bluetooth is pretty power-thrifty, yes. But the Tile app was
| kind of power-hungry, since it had to wake up the phone's CPU
| periodically to keep track of which devices were in range.
| mackrevinack wrote:
| even if they work properly, i can't get past the idea of having
| to replace a battery every year. and you probably wouldn't just
| have one of these either.
|
| its the same reason i could never get into any of that iot
| stuff since they mostly rely on batteries. its just plain
| absurd when you work out how many you would go through in your
| lifetime and is its crazy to think that everyone else would be
| doing the same thing.
| exabrial wrote:
| 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.
| Vybrannt wrote:
| Customers can personalize AirTag with free engraving, including
| text and a selection of 31 emoji, when purchasing them. That's a
| nice touch.
| Mandatum wrote:
| 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..
| snailmailman wrote:
| Find my iPhone data is end to end encrypted. If your device
| sees a lost phone nearby, it doesn't get to know who's phone -
| it just sends the encrypted blob to Apple.
|
| Apple then doesn't even know the location. The lost-phone-owner
| decrypts it.
| philip1209 wrote:
| I'm contemplating an AirTag for my dog!
| nikolay wrote:
| Apple has been in a Samsung catch up mode for years now.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| 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.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Did you read the linked page?
|
| "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."
|
| And before you fly off the handle about privacy: yes it is
| secure, yes it is encrypted, no Apple doesn't know where your
| shit is either.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Thanks for the explanation, although I could have done
| without the condescending tone.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| My pet peeve is people asking questions on internet forums
| and not spending even 60 seconds trying to find out the
| answer for themselves.
| pulse7 wrote:
| "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?
| quenix wrote:
| Yup. But the beacon packets have been designed to be extremely
| efficient and the finder protocol your device would
| occasionally use is super lightweight.
| gumby wrote:
| 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.
| billyhoffman wrote:
| Great point on the TV remote. Apple missed a great opportunity
| here for the new Apple TV remote to include AirTag find-
| ability! AirPod cases are another good opportunity for this
| functionality to be built in
| gumby wrote:
| I know, what a missed opportunity. My gf has a case for her
| AirPod case just so she can attach a tile.
| dippydipdips wrote:
| 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.
| zelly wrote:
| They already know where you are because of the GPS chip and
| mobile data. This is just the final step to find/fingerprint
| non-Apple and possibly non-internet connected devices.
|
| Think of all the interesting things you could do with a
| worldwide bluetooth mesh network, and they choose to use it for
| surveillance. Lol.
| asadlionpk wrote:
| What's wrong with that?
| thebouv wrote:
| I don't want my device sending or receiving any data using my
| data plan without my knowing. Do apps I have installed send
| shit constantly? Sure. But those are MY apps -- that's on me
| for using them. But if someone else has a tag, and I'm near
| it, my phone shouldn't be used to send/receive data about
| said tag at all. I definitely don't like this "we created a
| network of devices and everyone is opted in" setup.
|
| Similar to the hub-bub raised of Alexa devices "sharing"
| internet connectivity.
| russellendicott wrote:
| Had to scroll way too far in this discussion to find a
| kindred spirit. I despise bluetooth. It's so flaky,
| invasive, and resource hungry.
| duckfang wrote:
| 1. No informed consent that your device can do this
| 2. No positive consent to use it 3. No positive
| consent to allow others to use it on your behalf 4.
| Who controls the spy network? 5. They are using
| your bandwidth and device (similar to theft of resources,
| albeit trivial amounts)
| passivate wrote:
| Not the OP, but I would turn it off simply to conserve
| battery life. I'm still rocking a 6s, and my phone gets
| slower and doesn't last as long with every update.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the updates, but I'd also
| like to maximize the battery life.
| astrange wrote:
| It doesn't use any battery life compared to turning the
| screen on.
| danShumway wrote:
| But do you leave your phone's screen turned on 24x7?
|
| I buy that there are _more_ expensive things you can do
| with your phone, but even if turning off Bluetooth is
| only giving you back a small percentage of your total
| battery usage, that might genuinely be noticeable on an
| older device with an older battery.
| astrange wrote:
| I would say it's doubtful it even uses 1% of it. You can
| use low battery mode to more intentionally extend it.
| carlosdp wrote:
| It's privacy preserving with a rotating key scheme, there's a
| cool whitepaper about it that I'm having trouble finding right
| now, but here's an article: https://www.wired.com/story/apple-
| find-my-cryptography-bluet...
| singingwolfboy wrote:
| 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/
| mrfusion wrote:
| 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?
| flemhans wrote:
| Car, keys, backpack, purses, suitcase, jackets, bikes, pets
| [deleted]
| mrfusion wrote:
| How does this work under the hood? GPS? Cellular?
| RandallBrown wrote:
| Bluetooth and ultra wide band.
|
| It will use iPhones that are nearby to relay location
| information.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| 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.
| randyrand wrote:
| I tend to agree but stolen motorcycles and cars are a big deal
| in SF.
| djrogers wrote:
| > In the bay area, they won't for instance.
|
| Depends where in the Bay Area - it's a big place with a diverse
| grouping of cities. My local PD would definitely retrieve a
| stolen item if it were airtagged, but I imagine Oakland and San
| Jose would be a very different case.
| [deleted]
| eneloopy wrote:
| 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.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| Are you trying to kill an entire ecosystem of cheap accessories
| that is going to spring up simply based on the fact that they
| don't have a hole? :P
| digikata wrote:
| Wait for a teardown and select a place to drill your own hole?
| But yes, a surprising lack of design forethought.
| p1mrx wrote:
| If these become popular, you'll probably find plastic adapters
| for $1 on AliExpress.
| ggrelet wrote:
| Just imagine the sheer amount of non recyclable plastic this
| "design choice" by Apple to offer an un-holed product will
| generate. This world has a major problem.
| p1mrx wrote:
| I don't see this ever being relevant on the scale of
| plastic pollution; people will buy a few and use them for
| years. For example, is the world being overwhelmed with
| smartphone cases?
| theshrike79 wrote:
| You can create the holder from any biodegradable materials,
| leather or cardboard etc. No need to use "non-recyclable
| plastic".
| ggrelet wrote:
| But that's precisely what all these Chinese marketplaces
| won't offer.
| eneloopy wrote:
| Yeah I'm sure there will be cheap aftermarket alternatives to
| the Apple branded accessories, but it would be nice not to
| have to need an additional purchase for the common use case
| of just tying the thing to something. It also seems a bit
| wasteful
| athorax wrote:
| The holder accessories are as/more expensive as the tracker
| itself lol
|
| > _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)._
| twobitshifter wrote:
| I imagine the Hermes holder is going to be much more than
| that.
| [deleted]
| phinnaeus wrote:
| https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MX872AM/A/airtag-
| herm%C3%...
| polyvisual wrote:
| My side business is making handmade/handstitched leather
| belts, wallets etc.
|
| These keyfob holders look like the sort of thing I'd make and
| sell... probably for the same PS cost as the Apple branded,
| mass-produced alternatives.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Thank you for chiming in with your experience. I, like many
| others, assumed these accessories were being sold with an
| exorbitant markup but it seems like they may be pretty
| reasonably priced.
| phinnaeus wrote:
| I'm not sure that's what polyvisual meant. If they
| handmake an item and it sells for the same price as a
| mass-produced item, the mass-produced item is definitely
| marked up.
| curiousgal wrote:
| Small decisions like this is what makes me despise their
| tactics. All of the crap about the environment and all is
| nothing but hot air.
| ggrelet wrote:
| I don't understand why you are being donwvoted. Your comment
| is true in every way.
| klener wrote:
| "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?
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Yep, has been active since iOS 13 I think.
| freddyheppell wrote:
| I'm pleasantly surprised these have user-replaceable standard
| button batteries, definitely wasn't expecting that.
| kolinko wrote:
| May be due to their commutment to carbon neutrality and
| low/zero waste?
| chrisbolt wrote:
| It's less wasteful to use disposable and non-rechargeable
| batteries?
| tlrobinson wrote:
| Many of the competitors are entirely disposable. I'm not
| aware of any very small ones that are rechargeable.
| hundchenkatze wrote:
| There's more to these than just batteries. If they had
| sealed-in a rechargeable battery then you'd have to throw
| out the whole thing and buy a new one once it stopped
| holding a charge. This way you can just buy your own
| rechargeable CR2032 batteries.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| I thought you were joking about rechargeable 2032's...
| and I was wrong. Had no idea. I don't know why I didn't
| look into these before; I have a number of things that
| use 2032's that I can use this for.
| SilverRed wrote:
| I looked in to it and it looked like they were at a
| different voltage which could be an issue. Also devices
| that use these go flat so rarely that it will take
| decades to pay off the charger. But I guess if you have
| 20 airtags that could come faster.
| arsome wrote:
| Be careful with that one, many rechargeables aren't
| suitable for low current/long lasting applications due to
| self-discharge. There are "low self-discharge" cells, but
| not sure about that in a CR2032 form factor.
| asdff wrote:
| Better to replace a single battery after a year than throw
| away an entire perfectly good speaker and earbud and a
| spent battery after two years, like with airpods.
| ffggvv wrote:
| probably just the only practical thing. don't imagine people
| wanting to charge these things
| snickmy wrote:
| Looking forward to have a doc collar based on this
| bosswipe wrote:
| Is it cross platform? Can't find the info.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| No, why would it be? It requires Apple devices to detect and
| Apple's servers to coordinate the data.
| bosswipe wrote:
| This will reduce the power of Tile's finding network which
| will make it less effective for Android users. Why would
| they? To not be evil. They need to be stopped.
| madengr wrote:
| 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...
| isatty wrote:
| 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.
| colordrops wrote:
| This isn't ready for prime time until they are small enough to
| attach to my wife's eyeglasses.
| WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote:
| 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.
| Qahlel wrote:
| Put it in the seams of the bag...
|
| and then you can rob the house -or worse- after figuring out
| their schedule... and it's only $30!
| dbt00 wrote:
| except that of course your iphone will notify you if it sees
| an airtag that's not yours frequently.
| thebouv wrote:
| If you have an iPhone yes. Will it let the Android users
| know?
| ping_pong wrote:
| If you have an iphone. But outside the US, Android is far
| more popular.
|
| But this also begs the question, if I steal something with
| an AirTag on it, my iPhone would tell me that the item has
| an AirTag on it.
| p49k wrote:
| If you don't have an iPhone, the tag will just start
| beeping by itself whenever it's moved. This is covered in
| the article.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| You're being down voted because this is described on the page.
| If a tag not linked to your phone travels with you frequently
| while being away from its owner you'll get a notification.
| urmish wrote:
| What if the person you're tracking doesn't have an apple
| device?
| [deleted]
| gruez wrote:
| from the article:
|
| >And even if users don't have an iOS device, an AirTag
| separated from its owner for an extended period of time
| will play a sound when moved to draw attention to it.
| rodiger wrote:
| What if you don't have an iPhone?
| shuckles wrote:
| If you don't have an iPhone, your device isn't assisting
| the tracker. This is equivalent to being tracked by any one
| of the many existing such devices.
| p49k wrote:
| That's in the article too. It will start beeping when moved
| if it's following someone that's not the owner for a while.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| So if a thief steals my jacket with an AirTag inside,
| some time later it'll start beeping? At which point he'll
| discard the AirTag and I won't be able to track down my
| jacket. Kinda lame.
| gruez wrote:
| That's why it's advertised as "find things that got lost"
| product, and not "find things that got stolen" product
| (eg. lojack).
| shuckles wrote:
| You assume that in a counter-factual world, professional
| thieves can't learn to check the pockets of stolen
| jackets? They are already known to use Bluetooth network
| scanners to identify, eg, cars with electronics stored
| inside.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| How often do you imagine a professional thief stealing a
| _jacket_?
| shuckles wrote:
| I can't think of many thieves trying to steal jackets,
| but that was the OP's hypothetical, not mine.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| OP's hypothetical was a thief stealing a jacket. But I
| would expect that to not be professional territory. You
| added professional.
| zepto wrote:
| Not if the alert is delayed
| zepto wrote:
| Turns out that it is delayed by 3 days.
| wombat-man wrote:
| I think Apple decided preventing people from using
| Airtags to stalk someone is more important than
| preventing theft. Makes sense to me, can you imagine a
| high profile murder occurring because the perp was able
| to follow them with an airtag?
| kstrauser wrote:
| I could see having a wider window, say 2 days, for
| reporting itself. That would give you some time to find
| your stolen stuff, but would still be an expensive pain
| in the ass for the stalker to rotate that frequently.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| You're assuming the stalker is some rando, not, say, a
| jealous spouse who wants to make sure they really are
| going to work every day.
| SilverRed wrote:
| I assume it notifies ios users before it starts beeping.
| Sure that still leaves out android users but there is
| only so much they can do and there are many other
| products which do the same thing with 0 safety features.
| rodiger wrote:
| Doesn't help if it's, say, on the undercarriage/trunk of
| your car.
| jtsiskin wrote:
| Or if you cut the wire to the beeper..
| adolph wrote:
| I was thinking law enforcement but same deal.
| dbt00 wrote:
| From the link: "iOS devices can also detect an AirTag that
| isn't with its owner, and notify the user if an unknown AirTag
| is seen to be traveling with them from place to place over
| time."
| themaninthedark wrote:
| But that will only work if you have an Apple device/AirTag
| app installed right?
| sss111 wrote:
| >even if users don't have an iOS device, an AirTag
| separated from its owner for an extended period of time
| will play a sound when moved to draw attention to it.
| technofiend wrote:
| That's cool and all, but how do they handle a trainload of
| people all going the same direction sitting near each other?
| I mean public transportation is still a thing.
| function_seven wrote:
| When you get off the train, pick the one that sticks with
| you.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| It has to be away from the owner to trigger the warning.
| dariusj18 wrote:
| So after the owner accidentally leaves it on the train,
| someone will be notified to look for whatever item was so
| important that it needed to be tracked.
| newsclues wrote:
| Indeed I much rather get an alert on my watch that I'm
| about to leave the train on the way home with my phone
| still on my seat.
|
| The evolution will be smarter and stickier the more you
| invest in the ecosystem
| ragazzina wrote:
| > Of course, if you happen to be with a friend who has an
| AirTag, or on a train with a whole bunch of people with
| AirTag, don't worry. These alerts are triggered only when
| an AirTag is separated from its owner.
| gnicholas wrote:
| It only triggers if it's not with the owner but is with
| someone else. I wonder what happens if you put your luggage
| on a train and sit down elsewhere on the train. Would it
| recognize that it is still, generally speaking, with the
| owner?
| graeme wrote:
| Airplane transport crews may come to hate Airtags. I can
| imagine a lot of beeping luggage.
| [deleted]
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| They mentioned this exact scenario on their website[1]
|
| > Of course, if you happen to be with a friend who has an
| AirTag, or on a train with a whole bunch of people with
| AirTag, don't worry. These alerts are triggered only when
| an AirTag is separated from its owner.
|
| 1. https://www.apple.com/airtag/
| dariusj18 wrote:
| So if my family has a single car and we share keys it's
| going to annoy each of us that isn't the owner of the
| tag.
| SilverRed wrote:
| Thats good, stops parents tracking their kids without
| notifying them
| SllX wrote:
| Parents just equip them with an iPhone or Apple Watch
| instead.
| nostromo wrote:
| ... in both of those cases you can easily turn off
| tracking at any time.
| SllX wrote:
| You can lock the settings.
|
| https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252651769
| SilverRed wrote:
| You still can tell if someone is tracking you. I'm not
| aware that Apple allows in any way for an apple watch or
| iphone to monitor the location without making the holder
| aware.
| SllX wrote:
| I don't disagree, but this is not any comfort to the
| children of tech savvy parents. They'll be tracked and
| they'll know they're being tracked and they won't have
| recourse. AirTags are kind of irrelevant here.
| dariusj18 wrote:
| I plan on giving my child something they know is a
| tracker and something else that they don't.
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| And the problem is? At what point did it become wrong for
| parents to know where their children are? It's called
| responsible parenting.
| SllX wrote:
| I haven't stated anything to be a problem; only given the
| lay of the land.
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| I guess I misread your intent. Apologies.
| lovelyviking wrote:
| Did you register your marriage with Apple? :) Is this the
| future?
| coryking wrote:
| If they are part of your "family" in the apple ecosystem
| maybe it figures it out?
|
| Dunno.
| p49k wrote:
| I assume "over time" means for a long enough period to
| eliminate the possibility that you're on a train with other
| people.
| hyperpl wrote:
| Some train rides are quite long
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| I don't know what Apple is doing behind the scenes here,
| but if I were Apple, I would generate much more "signal"
| from "this AirTag is traveling with this _one_ person
| that is not its owner " than from "this AirTag is
| traveling with _forty_ people that are not its owner ".
| technofiend wrote:
| And maybe this tag is generating a stronger signal than
| any other and is registered to me. Apple is all about the
| user experience so I assume they have a solution, just
| curious what it is.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I wonder how they allow a device to tell that the same AirTag
| is being seen repeatedly without allowing malicious third-
| parties to do the same?
|
| I thought the system was designed in such a way that the data
| is meaningless to anyone but the owner of the tag, so that
| third-parties can't learn anything from said data.
| function_seven wrote:
| My speculation:
|
| The iOS device keeps seeing a random AirTag in close
| proximity. Even as the ID rotates, it's still about 2m
| away, and continues to be 2m away as you move. It doesn't
| know who it belongs to, but it's probably the same physical
| device, because it keeps going to wherever _you 're_ going.
|
| That's a different scenario than the evil store owner who
| wants to track their customers. In that case, it's just a
| random procession of tags roaming about the store. A tag
| arriving at the store on repeated days has nothing to
| indicate that it's the same one.
|
| So if it's being used as a malicious tracker (hidden in
| someone's car or purse), then the constant proximity is a
| clue. But if someone is trying to guess which tag belongs
| to a specific person, they can't unless they maintain
| constant contact with that tag over a long timeline. At
| that point, they can just _see_ you :)
| shuckles wrote:
| The random ID has a fixed suffix in the spec, so you can
| infer that it's the same AirTag if you see the same
| suffix across multiple rotations.
| gruez wrote:
| how long is the suffix? I can't see it being effective
| for both anti-stalking (ie. someone placing a tag on you
| without your consent) and anti-tracking (ie. shops/malls
| using your tag to follow you around).
| function_seven wrote:
| I don't know the answer to that, but thinking about it
| generally: If the suffix was just a single hex digit, it
| would work to detect a persistent tag. After, say 5 key
| rotations, if the last digit is still "E", then it's
| highly likely that the tag that's constantly in range is
| the same physical thing.
|
| Meanwhile, if you're trying to use these things to track
| visitors to your store, you're only getting 16 bins of
| people. My "E" tag will be the same as 50 other people
| who've visited last week with the same "E" suffix.
|
| I'm having a hard time finding the actual whitepaper on
| this. Hopefully someone links it in this thread.
| shuckles wrote:
| Unfortunately, the spec is currently only available to
| partners in the MFi program. That is probably where
| parameters like the one you are asking about are defined:
| https://developer.apple.com/find-my/. I'm sure there will
| be a paper published that reverse engineers the spec once
| these devices are out in the wild.
|
| The protocol is in Ivan Kristic's Black Hat 2019 talk:
| https://i.blackhat.com/USA-19/Thursday/us-19-Krstic-
| Behind-T...
|
| Finally, the static part of the broadcast doesn't need to
| be permanently static. It simply needs to rotate at a
| period that's longer than the rest of the public key.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| It may not be foolproof (ie. if the person in question
| doesn't use iOS) but at least this shows Apple has considered
| the potential for abuse.
| p49k wrote:
| Apple covered the "person being tracked doesn't use iOS
| case" - read the article.
| mlindner wrote:
| They covered that too.
|
| > And even if users don't have an iOS device, an AirTag
| separated from its owner for an extended period of time
| will play a sound when moved to draw attention to it.
| [deleted]
| capableweb wrote:
| So what about the majority of people who do not own an iOS
| device? They can be tracked?
|
| Somehow I don't see this idea working out when law makers
| start seeing what kind of things this product enables.
| lancepioch wrote:
| You realize these devices already exist and for much
| cheaper right? In fact you can buy or make your own with
| gps and a sim card too. This technology isn't new at all.
| Even this exact product isn't new, you can already do this
| with Tile. The big difference is that AirTags are more
| secure.
| [deleted]
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| > And even if users don't have an iOS device, an AirTag
| separated from its owner for an extended period of time
| will play a sound when moved to draw attention to it.
| capableweb wrote:
| I'm not sure how that solves anything. I'm worried about
| situations like people tracking others by placing the
| AirTag on their person. If they gotten close to them
| once, they can probably do it more times too, to
| retrigger the inactivity period.
| jliptzin wrote:
| Good luck hearing that when it's stuck to the bottom of
| your car.
|
| That being said, plenty of devices are already available
| to cheaply track people without them knowing.
| Angostura wrote:
| According to the link, if the tag is away from the owner
| you can disable tracking with a NFC-enabled device, as well
| as an iPhone.
|
| It's _not_ for anti-theft
| [deleted]
| mlindner wrote:
| >And even if users don't have an iOS device, an AirTag
| separated from its owner for an extended period of time will
| play a sound when moved to draw attention to it.
|
| So even non-Apple users will get alerted if they're being
| tracked with it.
| jtsiskin wrote:
| Couldn't someone just break the beeper on their tracker?
| asdff wrote:
| Non apple users who aren't hard of hearing, that is.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Does this mean that if your phone dies or you turn it off
| during a movie your keys will randomly beep at you?
| rp1229 wrote:
| No -- it has be 'over time' which can be inferred to mean
| more than 2 hours.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| How long do you infer it to be? I assumed they just meant
| it wouldn't beep if you momentarily stepped out of the
| room for 30 seconds.
| DangerousPie wrote:
| I suspect "an extended period of time" will not be an hour
| two.
| asdff wrote:
| How long is that, though? I wish Apple spoke in absolutes
| when discussing technical details. Some people shut their
| phone off to golf or do some other outdoor activity, like
| hiking. Some rounds take close to 6 hours on public
| courses depending on pace of play. Imagine your friend is
| trying to putt then your air tagged golf bag starts going
| off on the 18th green.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| Or lend a backpack to a friend to go on a week long
| camping trip?
| wrboyce wrote:
| Take the tag off the bag? Surely you can work that out
| for yourself whilst dreaming up these ridiculous edge
| cases to prove some point?
| sib wrote:
| They've thought about this use case and actually tried to do
| something about it:
|
| "iOS devices can also detect an AirTag that isn't with its
| owner, and notify the user if an unknown AirTag is seen to be
| traveling with them from place to place over time."
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| No reason people couldn't have been doing this with iPhones for
| the past decade (albeit that's a pretty pricey tag).
| endisneigh wrote:
| Downvoted because this is literally addressed in the article:
|
| > AirTag is also designed with a set of proactive features that
| discourage unwanted tracking, an industry first. Bluetooth
| signal identifiers transmitted by AirTag rotate frequently to
| prevent unwanted location tracking. iOS devices can also detect
| an AirTag that isn't with its owner, and notify the user if an
| unknown AirTag is seen to be traveling with them from place to
| place over time. And even if users don't have an iOS device, an
| AirTag separated from its owner for an extended period of time
| will play a sound when moved to draw attention to it. If a user
| detects an unknown AirTag, they can tap it with their iPhone or
| NFC-capable device and instructions will guide them to disable
| the unknown AirTag.
| Hadriel wrote:
| just wrap the airtag in something that reduces sound and now
| u can track android users. no one is gonna head something on
| the bottom of their car.
| Closi wrote:
| Or, you know, just buy a cheap mobile phone and use any one
| of the number of existing android tracking apps.
| sumedh wrote:
| The phone will die in one day, Apple tracker will live
| for an year (I believe)
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| i suspect this is one of the reasons airtags are so delayed.
| see macrumors.com
| agumonkey wrote:
| I'm surprised I never ran into something like this on
| aliexpress.. I've seen a few spypen popping up
| kalleboo wrote:
| There are lots of GPS tracking devices that phone home over
| 3G. But they're all bulky and have terrible battery life.
| These (like the Tile devices that came before them) just use
| Bluetooth LE to talk to any phone nearby that will listen (in
| Tiles case it was their small network of owners, for AirTag
| it's any modern iPhone), and that phone will do the actual
| GPS tracking.
| slezyr wrote:
| These things are called beacons
|
| https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=S.
| ..
| freeflight wrote:
| I also originally wondered about that, but they use Bluetooth
| for tracking.
|
| Doesn't mention what version, but even with Bluetooth 5.0 the
| maximum range would be around 400 m/1.000 ft under ideal
| circumstances.
|
| So the tracking would only work if you actively pursued the
| target to stay in range.
|
| Probably much more practical to go for an actual GPS-tracker,
| magnetic versions of those can be bought on Amazon for like 50
| bucks.
| jonplackett wrote:
| The whole point of everyone's objections is that it _also_
| can be spotted by the wider network of all the other iPhones
| in the world, including whoever steals it (or is being
| stalked using it).
| matthew-wegner wrote:
| Any iOS device will relay the AirTag's beacons to iCloud---
| not just your devices.
|
| If you lose a tracked device, you can see its location if a
| random person's Internet-enabled iDevice hears any of its
| chirps. The stranger's device doing the relaying is unable to
| decrypt the contents; it just forwards the data to Apple.
| cute_boi wrote:
| hmm I don't think I would like my device should send data
| for others property (AirTag) becons to cloud?
|
| Why should I spent my data cost to send beacons for someone
| else?
|
| I hope it can be disabled.
| just-ok wrote:
| Yeah I'm surprised more people aren't mentioning this:
| I'm really not a fan of being an involuntary participant
| in Apple's mesh network.
|
| I guess I could monitor my Bluetooth status more often,
| but the Control Center toggle (intentionally) doesn't
| turn it off entirely...
| themark wrote:
| Yeah I find it really annoying that the toggle doesn't
| work like it should. I made a shortcut that will turn it
| off all the way.
| just-ok wrote:
| Can you share how you did that? I've been trying to
| achieve that for both Bluetooth and Location Services
| (mini-rant: not adding a CC toggle for that is _such_ a
| dark pattern) but haven 't been able to pull it off.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The amount of data for all the possible AirTags you can
| encounter in a day is less than loading a single image on
| a modern web page.
|
| If your data caps are THAT tight, you might consider a
| different provider.
| patwolf wrote:
| 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.
| p49k wrote:
| 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.
| larrybud wrote:
| In what way? I'm a tile user and can't say that I've found
| their app to be hostile.
| dharmab wrote:
| Mostly I find the app to be really pushy on sales.
| [deleted]
| buzzert wrote:
| I haven't heard about this. Can you explain more?
| labcomputer wrote:
| The app:
|
| * Constant nudging to buy more with all the usual high-
| pressure sales patterns (creating urgency, doubt, etc)
|
| * Implies tiles with non-replaceable batteries will stop
| working after a fixed time (they won't).
|
| Other things:
|
| * The tile network is not as complete as I'd want it to be. I
| once lost my keys at work, and someone turned them in to
| security. It took a week before I was able to figure out what
| happened--I guess neither the finder nor anyone working near
| the security office had the tile app.
|
| * Fairly high subscription fees for the tiles with
| replaceable batteries.
|
| * Tiles are fairly thick. Even the new Tile Slim is pretty
| thick to put in a wallet.
| cdolan wrote:
| * Implies tiles with non-replaceable batteries will stop
| working after a fixed time (they won't).
|
| --> wouldnt the battery eventually die? This seems obvious
| that after some amount of time a non replaceable battery
| will stop functioning
| p49k wrote:
| That's not the issue. If you buy a Tile with a non-
| replaceable battery, the actual battery life will vary
| greatly depending on various factors: how long it was
| sitting on the shelf before you bought it, the
| temperature of the environment it's located, how often
| you make it ring, etc.
|
| 11 months after activation, the Tile app constantly
| blasts you with warnings that you need to "Re-tile" and
| buy a replacement: via email, app notifications, repeated
| non-dismissable (only "snoozable") in-app alerts, and a
| lot of doom and gloom UI that presents a false sense of
| urgency.
|
| The truth is, the battery can last 2 or even 3 years
| sometimes, and you don't need to be notified by the app
| when it's dead - you'll know it's dead when it shows up
| as "not reporting status" despite you knowing where the
| tile is. So you should be able to tell the Tile app
| "Yeah, I know it is near end of life, stop bothering me
| about it" one time, rather than the app acting insane and
| showing constant notifications/red warning labels/etc.
| benguillet wrote:
| 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
| cHaOs667 wrote:
| 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.
| myrandomcomment wrote:
| This is pretty much a take my money item.
| kohlerm wrote:
| 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.
| mjgs wrote:
| Wouldn't it be cool if there was a way for this system to run
| scripts when certain events happen? Maybe send webhooks?
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The Shortcuts app can already hook into Find My, adding an
| event for "item found" is not a big thing for Apple to add.
| mjgs wrote:
| I think there are a lot more events that could be useful.
|
| Imagine you are travelling with lots of bags, maybe you are
| on a photo shoot or you are a roadie travelling with a band.
|
| - bag goes out of range - bag back in range - bag motionless
| - bag moving at more than 20 km/hour
|
| That sort of thing.
|
| You could build some cool apps for moving with stuff
| efficiently. Assign items to people on the fly, maybe a Siri
| type interface.
| presentation wrote:
| 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.
| gregoriol wrote:
| Come on Apple, stop stealing ideas from others.
| zepto wrote:
| Do you think Tile came up with this idea?
| qwertox wrote:
| 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?
| vokep wrote:
| Its apparently designed with that in mind. I'm not convinced
| though, give it 3 months before a few stories out there where
| someone's been stalked with one of these with the beeper
| disabled. I'd like to be wrong, guess we'll see.
| rstupek wrote:
| You didn't read the anti-stalking measures that are built in?
| qwertox wrote:
| > iOS devices can also detect an AirTag that isn't with its
| owner, and notify the user if an unknown AirTag is seen to be
| traveling with them from place to place over time.
|
| I don't have iOS devices.
|
| > And even if users don't have an iOS device, an AirTag
| separated from its owner for an extended period of time will
| play a sound when moved to draw attention to it.
|
| What is the definition of an extended period of time? One
| week? Two?
| fma wrote:
| Now that I think about it...My wife has an iPhone and I have
| Samsung Galaxy. If we put it on keys that we share...it would
| be _very_ annoying to have it beep at me as I drive just
| because my wife 's phone isn't there.
|
| If it _does not beep_ on my drive then it is still possible
| for your neighbor to track you as when you come home it would
| trigger the "owner is near".
|
| Sticking with Tile, which is cross platform, thank you very
| much.
| tpmoney wrote:
| A search for "gps tracker" shows numerous small, inexpensive
| devices that can do the same thing. The cat is already out of
| the bag on the "crazy person wants to stalk me" devices.
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