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I 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 o

I 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 ago
Wow, 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 ago
  It 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 ago
      Having a search icon where you can type stuff means anything "can be typed".
  - upbeat_general 5y ago
    Not 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
    Because again, the network is a common good. Why should everyone else participate in finding your devices when you don't want to participate in finding theirs?
    - angry_octet 5y ago
      Or a common evil, depending on your perspective. You can't opt other people out of tracking you.
    - darkarmani 5y ago
      I do want to help them in finding theirs, but just their phones. Why can't i divide up my expense/risk and spend it how i want? I'm not mooching off anyone, because i don't have airtags to mooch of their network sharing.
- upbeat_general 5y ago
  Sure, I may just be a confused person but I also have used iOS devices for many years and I'm the go-to tech support for my friends/family as I'm sure most people on HN are. I use myself simply as a benchmark because I know that if something confuses me, it'll almost certainly confuse most of the non-CS people that I know. Furthermore, when you disable the find my network it disables it for you as well. You can't just do it one way so it's not selfish.
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.

fastball 5y ago

Wow, 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 ago
It 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 ago
    Having a search icon where you can type stuff means anything "can be typed".
- upbeat_general 5y ago
  Not 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
  Because again, the network is a common good. Why should everyone else participate in finding your devices when you don't want to participate in finding theirs?
  - angry_octet 5y ago
    Or a common evil, depending on your perspective. You can't opt other people out of tracking you.
  - darkarmani 5y ago
    I do want to help them in finding theirs, but just their phones. Why can't i divide up my expense/risk and spend it how i want? I'm not mooching off anyone, because i don't have airtags to mooch of their network sharing.
upbeat_general 5y ago
Sure, I may just be a confused person but I also have used iOS devices for many years and I'm the go-to tech support for my friends/family as I'm sure most people on HN are. I use myself simply as a benchmark because I know that if something confuses me, it'll almost certainly confuse most of the non-CS people that I know. Furthermore, when you disable the find my network it disables it for you as well. You can't just do it one way so it's not selfish.

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.