Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Introduces AirTag

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 966 posts

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#331

Post by Hadriel »

endisneigh wrote: post #77
WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote: post #9

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.

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 th…

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.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#332

Post by russellendicott »

thebouv wrote: post #35
asadlionpk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with that?

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…

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.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#333

Post by andrewla »

asdff wrote: post #248
andrewla wrote: post #207

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…

raspberry pi and some script to click through the find my iphone website for you and hit the alarm after hitting your button.

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.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#334

Post by snailmailman »

john_payette wrote: post #171

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).

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.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#335

Post by spoonjim »

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…

The anti-stalking feature seems to be... preventing someone from tracking your movements with an AirTag? I don’t get it.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#336

Post by kstrauser »

wombat-man wrote: post #107
booleandilemma wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

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.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#337

Post by habibur »

pfranz wrote: post #204
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?

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 t…

> 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.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#338

Post by benguillet »

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

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#339

Post by andrewla »

RandallBrown wrote: post #312
andrewla wrote: post #207

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…

You can ask Siri to play a sound on your wife's phone if you have your own iPhone or a Mac nearby.

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.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#340

Post by millerm »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #286
andrewmunsell wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

Yeah, a lot of people applying the Nirvana fallacy here.
Post reply on HN