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Apple Introduces AirTag

apple.com

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Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#141

Post by llbeansandrice »

Nextgrid wrote: post #103
ehsankia wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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”.

> 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?

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#142

Post by basisword »

crazygringo wrote: post #71

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…

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.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#145

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

hyperpl wrote: post #132
p49k wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume “over time” means for a long enough period to eliminate the possibility that you’re on a train with other people.

Some train rides are quite long

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".

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#146

Post by jrochkind1 »

ambivalents wrote: post #96
puttycat wrote: post #75

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.

This was my first thought. Is there any downside to putting one on my dog?

> 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.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#147

Post by gruez »

booleandilemma wrote: post #65
p49k wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

That's why it's advertised as "find things that got lost" product, and not "find things that got stolen" product (eg. lojack).

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#148

Post by tinus_hn »

_23sd wrote: post #48

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 need…

Modern Bluetooth does not drain batteries. How do you think they can run a tag on a button cell for a year?
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