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.
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/
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.
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 rota…
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.
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.
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 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 rota…
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.
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.
It has to be away from the owner to trigger the warning.
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.
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.
"+/- 30cm" ?
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”
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 rota…
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.
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).
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 rota…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 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 rota…
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.
So basically you'd buy this if it were an entirely different product?
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.