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Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

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Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#171

Post by least »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #157
least wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, everyone who has the feature turned on is pooling their resources together to create a common utility that everyone with the feature benefits from. I fail to see how this is an issue. This is not like Apple exfiltrating data from your phone back to them that can incriminate you like the CSAM debacle that's still unresolved, this is a tool that has a quite easy to understand benefit for those that are using it. I…

Except they're not aware of the cost to them so it's not actually consent, and I can't stop them from sending apple or google a message to help track me if i turn one of my bluetooth devices on.

What is the threshold for how informed someone must be in order to be allowed to give consent or make their own decisions here? What responsibility would you place on Apple here versus on the consumers of its devices, specifically?

More than likely if you ask for more than what exists what will actually happen is that another blurb will show up in the long terms of service that most people don't read and people aren't any more enlightened about what exactly their device does.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#172

Post by hellotomyrars »

buck4roo wrote: post #161
least wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, everyone who has the feature turned on is pooling their resources together to create a common utility that everyone with the feature benefits from. I fail to see how this is an issue. This is not like Apple exfiltrating data from your phone back to them that can incriminate you like the CSAM debacle that's still unresolved, this is a tool that has a quite easy to understand benefit for those that are using it. I…

I hear what you're saying: Apple's Monopoly on airtags is good for you. Are there other monopolies you think are good for you? For others? For the world?

I think this particular usage of monopoly is suspect/leading.

Tile has a monopoly on Tile devices. Ford has a monopoly on F-150s.

Yes a company has a monopoly on its products in many/most cases. That doesn’t mean they have a monopoly on the market though.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#173

Post by webmobdev »

hackernewds wrote: post #165
walrus01 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The day that I install any amazon sidewalk enabled device in my home is the day I hang up my hat and resign in shame, as a network engineer who's been building internet infrastructure since 1999. It's so gross and wrong. amazon doesn't get a free ride on my residential internet service or arbitrary use of radio spectrum in my home. note: I also have no smart doorbells, cloud connected security cameras, internet enabl…

Eye opening that your vacuum cleaner or smart bulb wants you to directly embed your WiFi password for set up. Not to mention, usually the cheapest ones are subsidized by, at best sales of your data, and at worst espionage and security backdoors.

After my mom was bed ridden for some time, I reluctantly installed some Alexa enabled smart bulbs and switches, so that my mom could operate it by voice commands. But I made sure that I created a separate wifi guest network with low bandwidth to ensure Alexa / smart appliances don't waste the bandwidth unnecessarily (even if they leak the wifi password).

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#174

Post by kaba0 »

yosito wrote: post #118
Nextgrid wrote: post #4

An annoyance that is driving me away from the Apple ecosystem is the lack of choice when it comes to these new features - they are forced onto you with no way to disable them and sometimes radically modify the behavior of the device you purchased and may make it unsuitable for the original purpose you bought it for. I'm still using an iPhone and plan to get the new SE (and only because of Touch ID is back - Face ID w…

> I can be confident that once I do get a setup that works it'll likely stay working for years without breaking overnight I feel the opposite. I switched to Pop!_OS a year ago, and had a fairly standard setup. A recent update broke my dock and my launcher and made the whole machine unusable for days. I eventually fixed it, but the dock kept crashing and the launcher was acting wonky, so I've switched back to Mac. I d…

May I ask you why Pop OS! I think there are much more stable distros out there. But sure, you do have to tinker with linux the first time to make sure every hardware is properly supported, but afterwards I have to say it may be the most stable out of all three. I have really nasty software bugs on Mac as well, random process going 99% CPU, slow downs, etc.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#175

Post by nonrandomstring »

heavyset_go wrote: post #124

I dislike how companies are not only pushing proprietary mesh networks, but also making them automatically enabled for their users and opt-out. It feels like the companies are piggybacking on my internet connection, hardware and electricity for free to literally power their closed network. I don't get paid a penny for it, but their shareholders sure do. Open mesh networks could be really cool, but instead of open net…

IIRC the first ever successful prosecution for "hacking" rested on the idea of "stealing electricity" (see [1]). This is the prototype of all hacking laws from which 'compute misuse' laws derive because it was an indisputable example of loss/harm.

How does this foundational principle not apply to Apple 40 years later?

[1] The Hacker Crackdown Book - by Bruce Sterling

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#176

Post by kaba0 »

cobertos wrote: post #103
least wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does provide a benefit to you. You get to use the Find My network to help locate any missing devices you have and in exchange your devices also work as a node in the Find My network to help other people locate their devices. You can disable this by disabling Find My.

But that's the point OP is trying to make. It's an opt-out feature, and only once you know it's an issue and continuously making sure you're never opted back in.

Opt-in vs opt-out is a huge psychological difference.

Opt-out organ donation has like 90+% of the population, while opt-in only around 10%. You can believe how much of a difference does that mean.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#177

Post by lcmatt »

supernova87a wrote: post #83

Without more detail, I find the author's observation hard to accept at face value. The iPad battery usage being shown doesn't account for just the normal "asleep" battery drain, which, if it's not broken out specifically, could be just misleadingly assigning the Find My usage as the main part of it. (as the only thing that had active functions) It would be better to show what the battery usage/drain is without any ai…

I've had this issue too. My iPad pro is generally within 4 foot of an airtag which is attached to my keys. During the day I don't see any real battery drain however during the night it seems to be draining the battery at an accelerated rate.

I'd wake up and check it within the battery info section to see Find My using 90%+ of the battery over the last 24hrs.

I now have a shortcut setup to disable bluetooth on the iPad from midnight > 7am. Find my usage drops all the way down to <2% and battery drain is very minimal - if I leave bluetooth on overnight it jumps all the way back up and drains approx 40-60% of the battery overnight.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#178

Post by mschuster91 »

hackernewds wrote: post #164
heavyset_go wrote: post #124

I dislike how companies are not only pushing proprietary mesh networks, but also making them automatically enabled for their users and opt-out. It feels like the companies are piggybacking on my internet connection, hardware and electricity for free to literally power their closed network. I don't get paid a penny for it, but their shareholders sure do. Open mesh networks could be really cool, but instead of open net…

An egregious way internet providers do this now is to not only use your electricity, but also your internet bandwidth and router (!!) to create their so-called hotspot network. Obviously this is opt-out, poorly notified and hidden behind a bunch of dark patterns to disable. Looking at your Xfinity, coverage across all of SF..

> but also your internet bandwidth

Usually, not. You get the full bandwidth of your DSL line when you need it, the hotspot either only gets what remains (aka is in idle) or has its own PPPoE session that lives outside of your contractual bandwidth limit (obviously that one only works when the line bandwidth is greater than the bandwidth you're paying for).

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#179

Post by xxs »

tapoxi wrote: post #41

Could you theoretically fill a backpack with a few hundred of these and piss off everyone around you? Asking for a friend.

I was going to say: you should be able to program it on a single esp-32... and then I noticed the sibling's comment and a working prototype.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#180

Post by grey_earthling »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #155
walrus01 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The day that I install any amazon sidewalk enabled device in my home is the day I hang up my hat and resign in shame, as a network engineer who's been building internet infrastructure since 1999. It's so gross and wrong. amazon doesn't get a free ride on my residential internet service or arbitrary use of radio spectrum in my home. note: I also have no smart doorbells, cloud connected security cameras, internet enabl…

> just you wait until manufacturers of "internet of shit" things go really evil, and integrate low cost LTE radios into them with their own billing/centralized management/VPN system. Why bother? They'll iust use your neighbor's wifi (at extra rf pollution cost to your house) or the surveillance system on the streetlamp outside being paid for by your tax money or remove the opt out option from 'your' phone

> or remove the opt out option from 'your' phone

This is why we need viable open source phone OSes. Refuse to “just install the app”!

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