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Apple introduces new AirTag with longer range and improved findability

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Re: Apple introduces new AirTag with longer range and improved findability

#171
post #146

I have an older AirTag, which cannot be seen by my iPhone any more but gives a slight beep whenever it gets shaken. Anyone ever heard of the behavior?

IIRC, this indicates that it's linked to someone else's account, and has not been shared with you. The "beep when moved" feature is to alert people they're being tracked.

For example, I let my mother in law use luggage of mine with an airtag still in it and every time she moved it after the first day or so, it would play a noise.

Re: Apple introduces new AirTag with longer range and improved findability

#172
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple of late is a mystery. Their software and hardware product quality is wildly inconsistent and, yet, with the most simplest of hardware like AirTags and AirPods, they're like magic. iPhones, I could hardly care less about. These new airtags? Insta buy!

I can see it in AirTags, but, haven't used AirPods myself, what is so "magical" about them? Also, my understanding is that AirTags are only usable if you have an iPhone, am I wrong?

That is correct. With the iPhone at home, you keep getting "Unknown tracker found travelling with you" spam on your Android, and the AirTag rings occasionally.

I would not call that usable.

Re: Apple introduces new AirTag with longer range and improved findability

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just green washing on the level of “93.65% natural ingredients”. I keep seeing products in the supermarket with big "Made with REAL ingredients!" labels on them. As opposed to what? Imaginary ingredients? Classico pasta sauce is the most recent offender.

Chemicals. That’s what they mean by real ingredients: no chemicals. Like orange juice: can be from a chemical powder or real oranges.

This is a good example of how easy it is to fool people if they don’t have their own understanding of how things work.

Highlighting this has been a priority in my parenting. My child is having a great time trying to scare friends about the dangers of the chemical dihydrogen monoxide, which is found in a surprisingly large number of manufactured foods.

Re: Apple introduces new AirTag with longer range and improved findability

#174

I read they are popular with drug distributors. They ship their merch world wide using various hidden channels and couriers and this helps keep track of the merch.

Sounds like one of those "what if..." things someone made up. AirTags are terrible for surreptitious tracking, alerting every iOS user nearby of a tracked product following them around. I mean, years ago people, such as stalkers, would use it for this purpose, but Apple rightly gimped that. There are a lot of specialized, self-connected trackers that creeps and criminals use.

And simultaneously gimped the theft-alert use case. I embedded one into my labelmaker, which is a notoriously high-theft item on jobsites. I can still track it in case I leave it behind, which is great.

But if someone steals it, they get an alert that there's an airtag traveling with them, and they can go through their loot to figure out which item it is, and ditch it, or destroy it. In the first case I get my labelmaker back, but I never bust the thief.

Re: Apple introduces new AirTag with longer range and improved findability

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple of late is a mystery. Their software and hardware product quality is wildly inconsistent and, yet, with the most simplest of hardware like AirTags and AirPods, they're like magic. iPhones, I could hardly care less about. These new airtags? Insta buy!

I've started to dislike the narrative that "Apple never leads the pack, but it waits to release the best product." But that hasn't been true for a decade. Most improvements have been marginal, and they totally missed the boat on LLMs.

LLMs are way outside their lane. With that said they've been focused on the underlying components to enable LLMs since way before ChatGPT was on the scene: Unified Memory, Neural Accelerator, even Spotlight counts (as a data source), etc...

There was no world where they were going to be the breakthrough leader in LLM development. That's a problem they can catch up on when they need to or license the technology.

Re: Apple introduces new AirTag with longer range and improved findability

#176

Great to hear but it's still the same shape. I really want a 'credit card' shaped version I can slide into my wallet.

I bought a third party one to do just that, and it's worked fine for me: https://chipolo.net/en-us/products/chipolo-card-spot I think there are other options too

Does it tell a thief a chipolo is following them around like the apple tag?

Re: Apple introduces new AirTag with longer range and improved findability

#177

Airtag is the reason of why I stil have my favourite hand luggage. I had just sat down on the train from Zurich to Basel. Suddenly, someone sat down in front of me. He looked suspicious, but I didn't pay much attention. Just before the train departed, he picked up what I thought were his belongings and left. Twenty minutes later, already on the way to Basel, I looked toward where I had left my suitcase. It was gone.…

Thankfully you were in Switzerland rather than the states, I just never see American police caring about that.

Switzerland is the Singapore of Europe (I mean this in a good way!) - the state just functions in a way that other European countries can only dream of

Re: Apple introduces new AirTag with longer range and improved findability

#178
post #74

> Designed exclusively for tracking objects, and not people or pets, the new AirTag incorporates… Interesting to call out that it’s not designed for pets. I know several people with AirTags on their pet collars.

why not pets?

1. they way the network works, it works better for inanimate objects that don't move around

2. they contain small parts that pets might inadvertently eat, and some of the collars that exist for them have been known to snag on things and entrap pets.

Re: Apple introduces new AirTag with longer range and improved findability

#180
post #8

Is this demonstrably better that just... the devices already in your bag? My backpack would be a primary use case... and in it are my AirPods, iPad, and MacBook Air. I think any of these can use Find My already?

I don’t know how many people have bought them, but I’m going to guess it’s in the millions since Apple are updating it. All those people presumably do find it useful separate from their devices.

Personally I don’t always have an Apple device in my backpack, and when traveling you can’t put devices in checked luggage, so I use them for those use cases at least.

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