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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

#401
post #92

> The new AirTag is designed with the environment in mind, with 85 percent recycled plastic in the enclosure, 100 percent recycled rare earth elements in all magnets, and 100 percent recycled gold plating in all Apple-designed printed circuit boards. The paper packaging is 100 percent fiber-based and can be easily recycled. I'm no material scientist, but this seems pretty impressive to me that Apple's economy of scal…

Just stating the obvious that not buying one of these things that we never seemed to need until they told us we needed it is the only way to have "the environment in mind".

This feels like a good tradeoff as far as gadgets go. It doesn’t take finding that many objects for it to make up the energy cost to manufacture the AirTag.

They do require periodic battery replacements but I imagine it’s still a net savings or pretty negligible cost. I’d love to see a more formal analysis, though.

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

#402
post #336
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Initially they didn’t have it, people complained, now they do, and people still complain.

Considering theft is a property crime and stalking is often a prelude to much worse, I think they made the right choice.

I'm not taking any position on this, but some data to chew on concerning the US. There are roughly fourteen million cases of larceny in the US every year, and between three and four million cases of stalking in the US every year. Rate of violence with larceny is roughly 1% whereas rate of violence with stalking averages 30%. Threats of violence with stalking occurs in about three out of every four cases, if I recall.

Of course, there is an implicit bias with measuring stalking as "peaceful" stalkers who never get caught leave no evidence. Unlike theft which always leaves evidence by its nature (the thing is gone).

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

#403

I have ADHD – which is hardly uncommon in this economy – and the improvements to finding AirPods Pro with Find My have been a godsend. I use it almost every day. I've lost so many airpods in the past. I hope we see the same improvements to air tags. ps, Apple is driving me nuts with their branding. With is AirPods one word and Find My two words?

Same. If I had a dollar for everytime I've said "hey siri where are my keys/airpods/phone" they'd have paid for themselves several times over.

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

#404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the jurisdiction. One time I was driving down a twoo-lane road with a police car a few hundred feet behind me. An oncoming pickup truck veered several feet over the center line and almost hit me. I flagged the police down to tell them and they were nonplussed even though they literally saw it happen. Drunk driving, a greater threat than property theft, was of little consequence to them. On the other side o…

America is weirdly nonplussed by destruction and deaths caused by a car.

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

#405
post #265
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just green washing on the level of “93.65% natural ingredients”.

What level of materials recycling would be required for you to not consider it green washing? It’s a genuine question, since I don’t like Apple and agree that we buy tons of stuff we don’t really need. That said, our bicycles can’t be insured anymore, but having AirTags at least alleviates some of the angst over leaving them in public places.

Recycled plastics actually produce microplastics more than virgin plastics do. Some studies on recycled polyester garments found that they dump an additional 50% more or so into the environment than non-recycled polyester fabrics. And those non-recycled fabrics already release enormous quantities over their lifespan into the water supply and open air (via your dryer exhaust) already.

Dumb example for the sake of discussion, you could understand why recycled plutonium would not be a healthy thing to weave a sweater out of. It's less about the recycling and more about the material itself.

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

#406
post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do these tags need to be configured on both networks to support both protocols? If I own an Android device and configure it there, will Apple devices still find the tag? How does that work?

The Chipolos that I have purchased appear on my phone when first presented, then do not offer to pair to other users' Find Hubs unless I deregister. I imagine that Airtag functionality is disabled when Find Hub configures these tags. I have heard in the commentary here that Chipolo is now making dual-network devices, but only one can be active at a time. Apple has a larger and more sensitive network, so uses requirin…

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

#407
post #332
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens after that? It goes dark? Or it just alerts the thief (stalker victim)?

I have only seen the Google side, just a single time when one of my Chipolos threw an alert on my passenger's Samsung. My Chipolo certainly still works. There are [cheap] tags being sold that are compatible with both Apple Find My and Google's Find Hub . I would rather have a dual-network device than Apple's improved model. Would it be so difficult for Apple to put a hole in the Airtag so it could be directly attache…

Do the Apple/Google "multi-tags" support the UWB precision finding from the phones?

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

#408
post #276
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just green washing on the level of “93.65% natural ingredients”.

It’s never possible for things to be good with people like you. It’s not 100% recycled, which would be better. But surely, this is better than 0% recycled??

Ironically, it's worse. I just wrote another comment about this. Recycled plastics carry more toxic load and shed more (and more fragmented) microplastics into the environment. Recycled plastics only win out on carbon emissions.

Moral of the story: plastic is just not good. Avoid buying things made out of ANY kind plastic if you are going to regularly wash and mechanically agitate them. You won't eliminate 100% of washed plastic in your life, but it's surprisingly easy to get rid of 80% of it without sacrificing quality of life.

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

#409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

My car got broken into in Oakland, California. Multiple pieces of luggage stolen (yes, my fault for leaving it in the car in the first place). Luckily I had an AirTag that showed the exact location of the stolen items. I called the police but they said they couldn't do anything. Apparently, even if I had the location the thief would have to invite them in. Regardless, I was put on a waiting list, they finally called…

> (yes, my fault for leaving it in the car in the first place).

It's not your fault. It's California's fault for tolerating a culture of criminality.

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

#410
post #365
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again prioritizing low cardinality event (stalking) instead of high cardinality event (theft) because of "security", making the device mostly pointless, good only to quickly locate some thing at home (assuming battery still holds after the thing being forgotten for years in a closet).

"Again prioritizing low cardinality event (stalking) instead of high cardinality event (theft)" I don't think you can speak to the relative likelihood of these with any confidence. There are lots of people for whom stalking is a much bigger problem than theft.

Stalking has likelihood of being life threatening, property can’t be life threatening.
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