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Yeah, the 'Settings > [Name] > Find My > Find My iPhone > Find My network' option will turn the collaborative tracking off. But yeah, it's buried, poorly explai
by blintz 5y ago
Yeah, the 'Settings > [Name] > Find My > Find My iPhone > Find My network' option will turn the collaborative tracking off. But yeah, it's buried, poorly explained, and an opt-out rather than an opt-in.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- fastball 5y agoThat's not buried at all. It's literally where I would expect to find that setting. And it is opt-in... you need to enable Find My iPhone at setup time in order for that to be enabled.
- upbeat_general 5y agoI spent about 10 minutes googling how to disable it before finally finding the find my settings. There’s nothing on any of the apple pages I could find about opting out. If it took me that long to disable it, it won’t be obvious for most people. I found it through Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> Share my Location -> Find my iPhone -> Find my Network. They could have put it 2 steps above or found a better way.
- fastball 5y agoWow, so you can actually find the settings through two routes, I didn't know that but it makes it even easier! The only jump that is not immediately obvious is that the Find My settings are under your Apple ID settings. Everything else is blindingly obvious and is not confusing at all. You being confused does not mean the average person will also be confused. You could just be a confused person. From there though, it is a root level option when setting up your phone and enabling "Find My iPhone". I'm actually disappointed that the disabling of the network is even an option. Bit of a tragedy of the commons situation if we have too many selfish people like you who want the benefits of being able to find their own phone when it's lost but not participate in helping find other people's.
- divbzero 5y agoIt also comes up if you search for “location” or “privacy” in Settings. Not completely obvious but easily discoverable for anyone concerned about privacy. > tragedy of the commons situation if we have too many selfish people I can’t think of how helping the Find My network would compromise my privacy in any significant way. But I am still glad there’s an option to disable, there may be people for whom it is a concern.
- hunter2_ 5y ago> if you search Eh, I find it a stretch to consider things that need to be typed "discoverable" unless there's a user manual provided telling you everything that can be typed. This same reasoning is why many would consider GUIs (or text mode menu-driven interfaces) to be more user-friendly than CLIs. Voice assistants have a very similar issue, but nobody likes IVR systems either, so who knows.
- CRConrad 5y agoHaving a search icon where you can type stuff means anything "can be typed".
- upbeat_general 5y agoNot privacy but battery life. I don't necessarily want to constantly scan for bluetooth devices around me and have some process sending that identifier and my location to Apple, even if it's done securely.
- darkarmani 5y ago> Bit of a tragedy of the commons situation if we have too many selfish people like you who want the benefits of being able to find their own phone when it's lost but not participate in helping find other people's. What if you only want to turn off airtags? This false choice is caused by apple.
- fastball 5y ago
- threeseed 5y ago> They could have put it 2 steps above or found a better way. They have a search bar at the top where you can type "Find my" and it jumps you straight to those sections.
- raylad 5y agoIt says: "Find My Network: Participating in the Find My network lets you locate this iPhone even if its offline" So in fact there is no option (there at least) to opt out of finding other people's AirTags unless you also want to opt out of finding your own iPhone, at least as stated.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- CountDrewku 5y agoThat's because it's using the same "network" to track both. It wouldn't make sense to turn one off an not the other. When your device is offline it's acting just like the AirTags and pulling info from other nearby iphones.
- stingraycharles 5y agoWhich is entirely fair, don’t you think? If you want to make use of the ability to find your phone while it’s powered off, you should help others to do the same. Or is it the airtag functionality specifically that’s bothering you?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- FalconSensei 5y ago> Or is it the airtag functionality specifically that’s bothering you? A phone is bigger, more visible, and expensive if someone would want to use it to track you. Not practical at all. Maybe they should have 2 options: Phone and Tags (or All). Enabling find my phone would not necessarily allow tags.
- darkarmani 5y ago> Or is it the airtag functionality specifically that’s bothering you? Yes. What does find my phone have to do with airtags?
- temp667 5y ago1) Where would you put it, there are already TONS of options for wifi / bluetooth / audio etc. This is where I would expect it. 2) You can just disable this stuff when you first get your phone it walks you through these prompts there. If you don't enable it - it is not enabled. 3) Spam should be opt-in - most people don't want it. But a lot of Apple stuff should be opt-out, because people do want it. Ie, turn on GPS / location features - folks really want weather, maps with turn by turn etc. Apple already over prompts on setup for my tastes.
- drclau 5y ago“Settings” has a search function. While not perfect, it does work. Searching for “find” takes you very close to what you were looking for.
- m3kw9 5y agoOpt in as the default will surely defeat the usefulness of airtags
- madeofpalk 5y agoNote this is what Facebook says about having to consent to tracking on iOS ;)
- SilverRed 5y agoAlso there is not really any logical reason to disable it. Apple claims it has essentially no noticeable effect on battery or data usage. Your iphone scans for tags once every 2 minutes while it is also checking for notifications so there isn't even an extra cpu wakeup.