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Apple Introduces AirTag

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271–280 of 966 posts

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#271

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.

I tend to agree but stolen motorcycles and cars are a big deal in SF.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#272
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 r…

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.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#274

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.

i suspect this is one of the reasons airtags are so delayed. see macrumors.com

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#275

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 butto…

If you setup a HomePod or Find My iPhone correctly, you can trigger it from that or your iPhone.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is ridiculous that something as basic as having a user replaceable battery is considered an unexpected nice feature.

Some Tile models don't have replaceable batteries either. There's a tradeoff in form factor

actually not much in mine...

maybe in the tile slim ones though

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

The do care about stolen vehicles tho. Motorcycle theft is a big problem.

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

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#278

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 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 rel…

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.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 si…

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 f…

Hint: tight up under the Brooks saddle with hot glue.
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