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AirTag Teardown Part One: Yeah, This Tracks

ifixit.com

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Re: AirTag Teardown Part One: Yeah, This Tracks

#161

Post by twobitshifter »

GeorgeTirebiter wrote: post #128

Do people actually need to use these things? Maybe I'm weird, but when young, I had drilled into me Benjamin Franklin's "A place for Everything, and Everything in its Place". If I can't remember where I put something, then I suspect Bigger (medical) Problems are on the horizon... (!)

There have been over 30 million tiles sold worldwide, so there’s a sizable market. Many people are distracted and absentmindedly will leave valuables behind or in odd places, sunglasses, keys, wallets, umbrellas, hats, remote controls. Most of this is stuff on your person. Even if you have a proper place, sometimes stuff just drops out of pockets or bags.

Re: AirTag Teardown Part One: Yeah, This Tracks

#162

Post by SahAssar »

adamlett wrote: post #115
myself248 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when phones were built to survive the outside world without a case, I never put cases on my phones. The whole Nextel and Nokia and Blackberry era, not a one. They looked a bit worn from a few years each in my pocket with my keys, but they all worked fine, and they'd all survive a drop to the floor. Today the only phone I'd trust to survive a naked drop would be a Unihertz Titan, but until there's an AOSP ROM for…

Back when phones were built to survive the outside world without a case You mean: Back when phones had screens made of plastic instead of glass. And yes, sure, that does make them more likely to survive a drop, but also means the screen becomes a scratch magnet. That of course is the right compromise when the screen is tiny and the pixels are enormous, but not so much when it’s the other way around.

I think the nokia lumia line handled this pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf1fRu9YgfE

My lumia 800 went through hell (including being dropped from a third floor balcony onto asphalt) but still looked good.

Re: AirTag Teardown Part One: Yeah, This Tracks

#163

Post by smichel17 »

tootie wrote: post #158
caturopath wrote: post #18

The lack of loophole was disorienting, but then I went and looked up how they want you to attach it, and the hangtag accessories look so pretty https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apple-introduces-airt... -- things like the appearance and the sound quality really show a commitment to making polished products rather than practical ones. I've been fairly negative on Apple for a few years and they still need to pull…

People debate if Apple is about primarily hardware or software but I posit their forte is marketing. They make good products but also consistently beat out superior competition by engineering desirability.

They're a fashion company, which happens to produce hardware and software. A bit like Riot Games is an art company which happens to produce League of Legends (like Valve / TF2 and hats/collectibles before them).

Re: AirTag Teardown Part One: Yeah, This Tracks

#164

Post by brailsafe »

caturopath wrote: post #18

The lack of loophole was disorienting, but then I went and looked up how they want you to attach it, and the hangtag accessories look so pretty https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apple-introduces-airt... -- things like the appearance and the sound quality really show a commitment to making polished products rather than practical ones. I've been fairly negative on Apple for a few years and they still need to pull…

Sheesh, those are costly. $35 usd is more than two weeks worth of groceries, two months of a world of Warcraft subscription, and about the same price as any of Affinity's products. For the AirTag, I'd admit that it seems sophisticated enough to warrant it. But the loop to affix it!?

Re: AirTag Teardown Part One: Yeah, This Tracks

#165

Post by qqqwerty »

ngoldbaum wrote: post #155
wincy wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow I didn’t believe this stat, but sure enough 87% of people use cases on their iPhones. I didn’t know people were so paranoid, I love my iPhone 12 Pro Max because it feels perfect in my hand despite being so large. I feel like a case would ruin that. I wonder if it’s paranoia or actual clumsiness or maybe just salespeople that get people to buy cases. I’ve owned an iPhone since the 3G and have dropped my naked phon…

Glass is much more slippery than a plastic or leather case. I’ve cracked a caseless phone’s screen after it slipped off a slightly off-level table. I always use leather cases now and no longer have the problem of my phone randomly slipping off of surfaces or even falling out of my greasy hands.

It boggles my mind that phone makers don't use a grippy surface on the phones. The sleek surfaces look great in marketing photos but make for horrible usability.

I use Android and once a phone is nearing the 3/4 mark of it's useful life, I pull the cases off because at that point the smaller/sleeker form factor helps offset the annoying performance degradation. With my Nexus 5, which had a grippy back, the screen is still intact to this day. My Nexus 6p, which has a metallic back, slipped out of my hand the very first day I took the case off and the screen shattered.

My new strategy is to just buy a mid-low range android at the end of the sales cycle for a steep discount. I got last years Moto G Power model for about 40 bucks. Once I get about half way through it's useful life (~2 years), I am going to take the case off and I am going to scuff it up with sand paper and then spray on some truck liner or other grippy surfacing agent.

Re: AirTag Teardown Part One: Yeah, This Tracks

#166

Post by Someone »

audunw wrote: post #146
threepio wrote: post #25

What are the practical ramifications of Apple harnessing every existing iPhone as an AirTag discovery device in the Find My network? (I think it's awful from a privacy and device-ownership standpoint, but let's leave that aside.) For instance, because physics is real, it must take some amount of battery power & data transfer to collect information about nearby AirTags. Suppose I walk into Disneyland on a summer weeke…

I’m assuming AirTags just send out Bluetooth advertising packets. Your phone is continuously listening for those anyway to detect devices you own, like your watch and headphone. So that part is “free”. The power required to process the packet is negligible. Sending the data back to Apple could be more significant. But I guess that’s only of the AirTag is “lost”, and probably as part of a bundle of data sent regularly…

> Sending the data back to Apple could be more significant. But I guess that’s only of the AirTag is “lost”

To do that, your phone has to know which AirTags are lost.

A solution might be that Apple periodically sends a list of lost AirTags to phones (possibly as a bloom filter or other inexact, but compact, structure), but I’m not convinced it does. Maybe, it bets on AirTags being rare enough (who’s going to buy tens of them? I wouldn’t, as the idea of having to replace those batteries would put me of buying many) for this not to be a problem.

Re: AirTag Teardown Part One: Yeah, This Tracks

#167

Post by fblp »

texec wrote: post #45
fblp wrote: post #3

I wonder what the internal discussion at Apple was about whether or not to include a loophole in the product. The fact that fixit has gone out and shown how you can add a loophole rather than wasting $13 on an accessory is a bit of a facepalm moment.

Beside the size it's probably a tradeoff on mechanical integrity: a keyring can introduce immense mechanical stress. On my last tag the small loophole just broke away after a year on a key that was not used daily or in harsh environments. With the AirTag you can just replace a $2 third party accessory. Apple didn't have to engineer a very durable (maybe milled?) loophole, which would have increased cost.

Great response. Thank you!

Re: AirTag Teardown Part One: Yeah, This Tracks

#168

Post by gumby »

tzs wrote: post #106
gumby wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... Which I assume also mutes it?

I'd expect sticking the tag to some ferromagnetic surface, such as a fridge door, by the magnet to have about the same effect as gluing the tag to that same surface would which I would guess would be none. Generally in a permanent magnetic speaker the permanent magnet is solidly affixed to the speaker housing. The part that actually moves to make sound (the diaphragm) has a coil attached to it. The signal is sent thr…

Thanks for that great message!

The case I was thinking about was specific to the airtag. In this case a fixed voice coil moves a small permanent magnet attached to the diaphragm rather than the other way around (according to iFixit, quote below). So maybe a rare earth magnet oriented the right way could prevent the magnet from moving. There’s an air gap so it will have to wait until I can do an experiment.

Note from iFixit:

> Did you notice the “button” on the underside of the cover? That’s not a clickable button, like the Mate and SmartTag have, but rather the magnet we saw earlier in the X-ray. It sits right inside the donut-shaped logic board, nested into a coil of copper to form a speaker. You read that right—the AirTag’s body is essentially a speaker driver. Power is sent to the voice coil, which drives the magnet mounted to the diaphragm—in this case, the plastic cover where the battery lives—which makes the sounds that lead you to your lost luggage.

Re: AirTag Teardown Part One: Yeah, This Tracks

#169

Post by Someone »

glfharris wrote: post #84
smiley1437 wrote: post #47

I wonder if an Airtag can still track if it's been swallowed? Or does a human body block too much RF? I can practically guarantee these things will be swallowed if the ridiculous people who eat Tide Pods are anything to go on...

Please don't swallow anything with a battery, for the sake of your local emergency department.

For those who don’t know, read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button_cell#Accidental_ingesti....

Basically, shorting a battery using wet body tissues can lead to a hydrolysis reaction that produces sodium hydroxide (caustic soda), and that can burn through your oesophagus, blood vessels, etc.

Re: AirTag Teardown Part One: Yeah, This Tracks

#170

Post by tonyarkles »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #109
myself248 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when phones were built to survive the outside world without a case, I never put cases on my phones. The whole Nextel and Nokia and Blackberry era, not a one. They looked a bit worn from a few years each in my pocket with my keys, but they all worked fine, and they'd all survive a drop to the floor. Today the only phone I'd trust to survive a naked drop would be a Unihertz Titan, but until there's an AOSP ROM for…

There's also a line of phones made by CAT, the construction company, that looks pretty durable. I've been thinking about getting one just to have fun with the thermal camera.

Sonim too. Got to play with one for a client. It wasn’t pretty, I seem to recall it ran a pretty crusty version of Android, but damn was that thing tough. And the speaker! Oh boy... the app I was helping with had to do with personal safety, and if the volume was turned all the way up that thing was LOUD!
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