I didn't find any analysis here of what these companies are doing with all this location data they are collecting. The consumer gets some detail of single devices which they can see on a screen, but the mother ship is collecting a ton of detailed location data from every device that they can run through their advanced computing to refine into predictive products or advertising. This is the bigger story to me.
I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move
101–110 of 322 posts
Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move
#102I understand the negative points about airtags, and one negative point I thought of but never see mentioned is the fact that all iphones are opted in by default to use battery life and data (however little) to operate the findmy network. In fact not many non-tech people realize that a) airtags work globally, not just near your iphone and b) relay data through any nearby iphone and not somehow directly to apple. Peopl…
Yes it seems like Apple should be able to limit the Airtags to just the bluetooth of the owner and then mark the GPS location of the last known connection.
If more people knew about the piggybacking feature of Airtags, I think few would opt in.
Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move
#103Look, I usually try to be charitable. However, this article offered no new insight on Apple Airtags. If you don't want to waste your time, allow me to summarize: Woman puts Airtags in a car. Her husband isn't able to find them, even using Apple's "anti-stalk" features. Ergo, Apple needs to do more. I ask - what new insight did this article offer on Airtags? I don't think anyone can conclude either way on the effectiv…
> No, it seems like the author played a prank on her husband a while back and used that to neuroticaly follow him, then tried to excuse that behavior by writing this fluff piece.
She planted the tracking devices on him with his permission, after discussing with him that she wanted to write a piece on the experience. This information is right in the article.
Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move
#104Can someone explain to me (because I cannot work it myself) why everyone is suddenly worried about AirTags yet these kinds of devices have been around for a while (eg the Samsung Galaxy SmartTag was released last year and little was talked about it). And GPS tracking isn't even a new thing either. So why is it most conversations focus on the AirTag? What is it that the AirTag does better/worse/differently to the othe…
Apple may not have invented the technology, but they've definitely popularised it. Sounds familiar :P.
AirTags are (at least as far as I can tell) maybe a bit easier to use for this purpose than other tech, but that's not quite the point: we didn't have these discussions earlier because people didn't realise they were discussions we needed to have.
As another data point, I've met several people who put AirTags on their dogs, and have been disappointed by how poorly they've worked: if the dog runs off and there's no-one with an iPhone around, the AirTag is no help. I have a battery-powered GPS and GPRS tracker on my dog, which works just about anywhere. The AirTag-using dog owners just don't know these things exist.
Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually agree with you, but Tile is a better example, I think. Because needing to also get a working SIM card is a pretty substantial “oh, you’ll also need…”
Is it hard to buy a SIM card in much of the world? I can walk into one or about ten shops within 5km of here and buy one instantly. I think the price is ‘free’ but you pay something like EUR 10 to have credit on it. If you want to be anonymous, you can wear a hood and a mask and pay with cash.
In the US, it's very unusual to buy a SIM card outside of purchasing a phone and phone plan. And while we do have prepaid options, they're much less commonly used than in other countries.
At a quick glance, the cheapest T-Mobile plan is $60/mo, or $45/mo if you're adding a second line to an existing plan.
You can also get a SIM card intended for IoT usage, but this is probably not something your average non-technical person would know how to do. I also expect that most Americans are unfamiliar with buying a SIM card in a way that is not direct from a mobile carrier.
Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move
#106Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move
#107Hi All, I'm the cofounder and CEO of Life360, which is the relatively new owner of Tile. Stalking hasn't been much of an issue for us, but we are in the process expanding the finding network via our 35 million+ active user base (will require opt-in consent) and we also do offer a location device for kids and pets (Jiobit) that has its own cell connection which is actually meant for finding people in real-time. We hav…
> Stalking hasn't been much of an issue for us How would you know?
We get I think something on the order of 10,000 customer service tickets a week, and we regularly get subpoenas. We've heard almost every story you can think of. Although we are getting inquiries with this recent press, in terms of actual reports of stalking via our devices it is essentially zero.
AirTags has a much broader network than us as of now. Part of why we bought Tile is because we can expand their network. We aren't as big as Apple but we have about 10% of devices so it will get us way up the S curve.
So I could see it becoming more of an issue, which is why I'm looking for ideas. One thought would be to rate limit updates - at some frequency you get 90% of the benefit for lost items (since they don't move unless it was lost on say a train) but it dramatically hampers more nefarious use cases. That is just one thought. Or perhaps requiring ID verification and registering each device to a real human.
Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move
#108My comment isn’t specific to AirTags, but there’s a much larger conversation that needs to be had about this gray area of stalking capabilities that are now built into many mainstream products. Here’s a pattern I’ve seen play out more than once among friends and family - they share their location willingly and for seemingly benign reasons. It’s helpful to know when you’ll be getting home so I can start dinner! Just i…
Yeah. I took my partners dog for the afternoon. It has an airtag (not an official supported use). I knew the dog had it but there was some comment made about our walk. Monitoring by proxy. When I worked at a power monitoring startup (we monitored home power use, by individual circuit) this passive monitoring came up. And our CEO mentioned to his wife that she was home early.. "how did you know?" He saw the garage doo…
Care to share the competitors in the power monitoring space? I could really use a solution to this because my home electric bill is crazy high. We moved in to a new house about eight months ago and this electric bill is like 30% higher than my previous home. Not just the raw total of the bill - my consumption is higher in this house.
I know of sense.com but perhaps there are others?
Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move
#109Look, I usually try to be charitable. However, this article offered no new insight on Apple Airtags. If you don't want to waste your time, allow me to summarize: Woman puts Airtags in a car. Her husband isn't able to find them, even using Apple's "anti-stalk" features. Ergo, Apple needs to do more. I ask - what new insight did this article offer on Airtags? I don't think anyone can conclude either way on the effectiv…
I found these three portions intersting:
>[LandAirSea] which sells about 15,000 devices per month... tells these callers they should go to the police, because they will need a subpoena to determine who owns the device they discovered.
>My husband, of course, had agreed to this in principle, but didn’t realize just how many devices I had planted on him. Of the seven trackers, he found only two..It is impossible to find a device that makes no noise and gives no warning
>For all the bad press the AirTags have gotten...at least I was consistently getting notifications they were following me...The privacy dangers of the other trackers were way worse
Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move
#110Hi All, I'm the cofounder and CEO of Life360, which is the relatively new owner of Tile. Stalking hasn't been much of an issue for us, but we are in the process expanding the finding network via our 35 million+ active user base (will require opt-in consent) and we also do offer a location device for kids and pets (Jiobit) that has its own cell connection which is actually meant for finding people in real-time. We hav…
I have a slightly unrelated question about Life360. When Life360 sold Couple in 2016, did it sell all the data that users had stored up to that point as well? As best I can tell it was announced via tweet and sold to what looked like a 1-person dev shop. Myself and a number of others who used to use the app have often wondered this[1]. If I’m incorrect on anything in this article I would be happy to edit it, but I’d…
We sold the app in its entirety, which did include data, to a startup run by a former employee. It didn't really get going and the servers are all wound down, so I assume the data is gone into the ether for good (I am 90% confident on this last point - I will confirm).