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Android users are still vulnerable, and these announcements do nothing to reduce that. All a stalker needs to do, is remove the speaker. To detect a rogue AirTa

Android users are still vulnerable, and these announcements do nothing to reduce that. All a stalker needs to do, is remove the speaker. To detect a rogue AirTag, an Android owner needs to: 1) know AirTags exist (many obviously don't) 2) go out of their way to install Apple's Android AirTag scanner app (only 100k-500k worldwide have done so according to Google Play stats) 3) manually open the scanner app and scan, since it doesn't scan passively in the background; and even then, it won't help you find the speaker-less AirTag, since it doesn't tell you proximity & direction. I continue to think Apple should have never released AirTags to the public, and should discontinue it. It's a very limited income stream, with limited use cases, and significantly increases the average person's risk of stalking. Practically all positive social media coverage of AirTags involves someone tracking a stolen stolen items (car, bike). Those use cases are dead, since thieves with iPhones will get alerts, and most thieves with Android will know to scan for AirTags. And since most lost items turn into stolen items after a few hours, that removes most use cases involving losing objects in public. That leaves "finding your keys within your home" as the only truly "officially supported" use case. Is that worth all the problems, and brand damage? People will argue that stalkers could always buy trackers, but Apple increased their availability, ease-of-acquisition and ease-of-use by orders of magnitude. AirTags are cheaper than competing GPS trackers, most of which require subscriptions. I remember seeing a chills-down-your-spine Apple Watch Series 7 TV ad, that featured beautiful remote nature landscapes, with the audio of 911 calls made from people's Apple Watches whose lives were saved by their Watch. Probably one of Apple's best and most impactful ad in the past decade. Compare that to AirTag's impact on Apple's brand. Why did Apple even bother?

heavenlyblue 5y ago
Police in the UK does not follow up on requests to retrieve iPhones from FindMyPhone because the GPS tracking isn't exact enough to find the correct appartment. So for stolen items, it is also useless.
- phil21 5y ago
  > So for stolen items, it is also useless. It's not. I've recovered my phone after it was stolen by simply showing up to the house it wandered off to the next morning. I've done this a number of times for friends (perhaps not really the brightest idea in retrospect) and you'd be surprised at how many folks simply apologize and hand it over when confronted. If they refuse, at least you tried. Plenty of folks will take matters into their own hands for a $1,000 device that may be a source of their livelihood. Not everyone can simply walk away from that and absorb the loss.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    I wonder what the %s are of people that lose a device and do not immediately lock it? Is there a large enough market for buying stolen phones that are locked to make them useable again? Do these people expect to extort a finder's fee? I just don't think "criminal" enough to understand the value of a stolen phone. > Plenty of folks will take matters into their own hands for a $1,000 device I was once mugged at gun point and the 2 guys took my wallet/cash/phone. For some stupid reason, I thought it a good idea to kindly ask for my wallet and phone back by convincing them the phone was several generations older, it would be locked as soon as I returned home, as well as any cards in my wallet being canceled. Also, just to avoid the pain in the ass of dealing with the banks and not going to the DMV for a new ID. The 2 guys laughed, and gave me everything back except the cash. To this day, I don't know what made me think that was going to happen. However, as soon as I turned the corner, I was on the phone with 911.
    - el-salvador 5y ago
      > I thought it a good idea to kindly ask for my wallet and phone back by convincing them the phone was several generations older, it would be locked as soon as I returned home. About a decade ago when El Salvador was more dangerous, cell phone theft at gun point or knife point was more common. And well SIM cards used to be easier to remove from phones. So the "good thieves" would allow you to remove the sim card from the phone before stealing it from you. There were also times where the thief would be "pickier" than you, so if you had a very old or a damaged phone they would just give you your phone back after mugging you. Two tricks were faking an ugly phone while carrying without a battery cover and cover it with duct tape. Or carrying a hidden good phone and a visible old phone.
- tyingq 5y ago
  I would guess that since it's getting pinged by any/every iPhone that gets within ~10 meters, the AirTags are often more accurate, since "more samples". That probably doesn't help in all situations, but helps in a lot of them.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Possibly even by the criminals own devices. It's kind of genius
- mintone 5y ago
  This is partially correct but depends on presentation - I tracked a phone to a house, they said they couldn't help because it wasn't accurate enough, I said I was going to knock on the door and demand it back, they turned up in ~3 minutes and recovered it for me, arresting the person who had it at the same time. Because I presented it as "I am going to put myself in danger to recover this item" they were duty bound to act. Still didn't help much as it was held as evidence for literally months.
gjsman-1000 5y ago
Trackers have been around for years. Tile came out in 2014, and Samsung has their own Galaxy tracker line for a while now. Neither have anti-stalking features of any kind to this day. If one was stuck on your car, you wouldn't get an alert or any info on who placed it there, be you an iPhone user or an Android user. And before that, there were GPS trackers which have bigger batteries and were more accurate (if a bit larger and clumsier). But Apple apparently has done it with anti-stalking features but is too high-profile. We can have nice things even if they can get abused, stalkers are going to stalk and have superior alternatives without Apple. These new features are solely intended to scare them off into using their old methods. So if stalkers are going to do what they do anyway, I might as well find my items, thanks. Edit: Also, in your own point, you say "AirTags are cheaper than competing GPS trackers, most of which require subscriptions." Has a tracker costing too much ever stopped a stalker? For a creep, the difference between $25 one time and $10-20 a month for a more-accurate GPS tracker is unimportant. They'll pay the price of Netflix to continue their creepiness.
- concinds 5y ago
  > But Apple apparently has done it with anti-stalking features but is too high-profile. Remember that stalking isn't a profession; it's often a crime of opportunity, with plenty of reported cases of e.g. people slipping GPS trackers into spouses' cars/bags before or during divorces. Those people aren't sophisticated, and might go on Amazon and see Tiles that won't work (sparse detection network), or GPS trackers that cost the same as AirTags and have a monthly subscription. Or they could just pick a spare AirTag they have, and use that, because they know their spouse has an Android and wouldn't detect it. Again, the problem isn't that AirTags have been nerfed into uselessness because of anti-stalking protection. The problem is that AirTags still, to this day, present a major Android stalking risk (no AirTags notifications on Android with Apple's app, you have to manually scan), and Apple seems uninterested in doing anything about it (or even promising to do anything about it, since this announcement doesn't mention Android).
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    > Those people aren't sophisticated It is foolish to underestimate stalkers and stereotype it as just a crime of opportunity. > "problem is that AirTags still, to this day, present a major Android stalking risk" Ironically, so did Tile for the last 8 years, and Samsung's own Galaxy trackers for Android, but there is no outcry about them. Also, considering how long Tile has been on the market, this doesn't seem like a new issue. Also, Apple has built-in "Find My Friends" in iPhone. A stalker could just flip that on without telling the person being stalked (assuming he/she is close to him/her), and the phone would be tracking them, no tag necessary. Yet nobody ever hears about this being abused much. > "AirTags have been nerfed into uselessness because of anti-stalking protection" Hey, if I lose my wallet in my own home, it's great. If I can't find my wallet at the gas station, I can figure out where in the car it fell. There are plenty of ways it is still plenty useful. Also, if you are complaining about uselessness, maybe Apple should roll-back some anti-stalking protections but you'd be against that too. This leaves you in the impossible position of wanting Apple to restrict it more (reduce stalking) and simultaneously unlock it more (to improve utility), all while competitors don't bother with stalking prevention at all.
colinmhayes 5y ago
Maybe you don't lose stuff as much as other people? My brother was always complaining about losing his wallet, his keys, anything you can think of. I got him a tile, but their product wasn't very accurate. Got him airtags and the problem is solved. Not only are air tags useful, but I'm sure that there are people who would be willing to switch to iOS solely to get access to airtags. That seems pretty valuable to apple.
- concinds 5y ago
  > Maybe you don't lose stuff as much as other people? I relate to it and respect it, but it's doubtful anyone would switch to iPhone because of AirTags. Samsung and others also make trackers, and you don't need the Find My network if you lost your keys inside your house, any tracker will do. > Not only are air tags useful, but I'm sure that there are people who would be willing to switch to iOS surely to get access to airtags. After a Google search, I can't find a single anecdote of this from reddit or elsewhere. I doubt it's even a blip on Apple's balance sheet.
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    From the sound of things the airtags have been legitimately life changing for him. I know that sounds hard to believe, I certainly didn't at first but never losing stuff really seems like a weight off his mind. You're right, there's probably no evidence of people switching to apple for airtags, but that might be because they're such a new and relatively unknown product.
  - rainsford 5y ago
    I don't know how common this is, but I bought AirTags as a way to keep track of checked bags when traveling. That is a use-case that specifically benefits from being able to keep track of something outside of my phone's range where full GPS/cell connectivity would be overkill.
  - kevinmchugh 5y ago
    My mom likes her iPhone for other reasons but she loves her air tags. She can find her keys in her house, her purse at a party, and her car in a parking lot. She's never leaving the apple ecosystem now.
gambiting 5y ago
>>and significantly increases the average person's risk of stalking. I mean, increase from 0.00001% to 0.0001% is still significant and yet I still wouldn't worry about it in the slightest.
- paxys 5y ago
  You personally may not have to worry about it, but a handful of well publicized cases of misuse (say someone getting stalked/murdered) will probably be a bigger monetary hit to Apple than their profit from this entire line.
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    Then that is Apple's concern, in the meantime I'll enjoy using their product for legitimate purposes.
    - camdat 5y ago
      Reminder that the OP of this chain is explicitly coming at this question from Apple's POV. >I continue to think Apple should have never released AirTags to the public, and should discontinue it This discussion is specifically about what Apple should do, so I don't see how this is relevant.
  - can16358p 5y ago
    With the same analogy, we should stop producing kitchen knifes because someone may stab someone. We should also stop producing cars because someone may crash someone. Almost every technological device (or even a simple device) can be abused in wrong hands, nothing to do with Apple or AirTags.
    - baq 5y ago
      but that's precisely the wider point: new technology enables new behaviors, but in some cases, benefits are much smaller than downsides. i don't think the jury is out on airtags just yet. it's clearly revolutionary technology in terms of reach, for better or worse.
jpp 5y ago
If I were a guessing person: because future products will be the same size and price as AirTags … what would it look like if an Apple Watch cost $50? It could be used like an AirTag for stalking. So: sort out the privacy implications with a low-priority product like AirTag first. But I am not a guessing person. ;)
moogly 5y ago
> I remember seeing a chills-down-your-spine Apple Watch Series 7 TV ad, that featured beautiful remote nature landscapes, with the audio of 911 calls made from people's Apple Watches whose lives were saved by their Watch. Probably one of Apple's best and most impactful ad in the past decade. One could argue it's pretty distasteful to try to cash in on people's fears.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Well, that is one of the pillars of advertising these days. Survival food? Fear. Antivirus software? Fear. Expensive Organic Cat Food? Fear (of the inorganic cheap food). LifeLock? Fear. Insurance of any kind? Fear. Solar panels for off-grid? Fear (of the grid going down). Your cousin's extensive gun collection? Fear (if things get bad). And so on...
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Some of those might be a stretch to go with fear. Solar panels is pretty much targeted as a way to avoid high utility bills, trying to go green, etc. If you're in a circle of consipiracy types, then maybe the off-grid aspect is preached more. Mainly though, it's just about avoiding the bills, and maybe avoiding power interruptions. That requires batteries though. That might qualify as fear advertising.
  - corndoge 5y ago
    Insurance is mere pragmatism. Knowing that bad things happen that require large amounts of money to fix doesn't constitute fear.
- concinds 5y ago
  And that was the almost-universal response on reddit and YouTube comments, but are those people more, or less likely to buy an Apple Watch? Maybe not for themselves, maybe for their grandparents? Besides, it's the absolute bedrock of modern marketing, from weight loss pills to perfumes to clothing: when ads depict supposed customers smiling with their families, or going on a date, or being the center of attention at a party, it's the exact same psychological trick, twisting the knife of your insecurities, fears and FOMO, just done more subtly.
handmodel 5y ago
For me, 95% of the functionality of Airtags would still be there if it only worked with your own apple devices. I have found airtags for finding things when I lose my keys/wallet around the house. I do leave them at a restaurant tying it to my iPhone would still show the last place I had it.
- ninkendo 5y ago
  I felt the same way about Tile back in the day when I used it. I didn’t want my tile part of their “network”, I didn’t want other tile users to relay the location, I didn’t want my phone relaying other tile users’ locations. I didn’t want my tiles location going to any server at any point. I just wanted a to be able to make my wallet beep if I’m near enough to it for it to be in range of my phone. But the rest of the “features” couldn’t be disabled, so I threw my tiles out.
- withinboredom 5y ago
  Years ago, I had a tile on my keys. I left them on top of my car in a parking garage. When I went back, they were gone. Someone took them, probably meaning well but didn’t leave a note saying where they took them to. So that sucked. To this day, despite the tile being in “lost mode”, I’ve never gotten a ping. There’s real value in these trackers, because people pick up things that aren’t theirs.
dylan604 5y ago
does 2) really mean that, or does it mean that many people have downloaded it. does 2) get updated if someone deletes the app?
rainsford 5y ago
I think a major part of the announcement you're skipping over is the clear statement that individual AirTags are linked to specific AppleIDs and Apple will cooperate with law enforcement to help identify the owners of AirTags used for criminal activity. If you're a wannabe stalker, the fact that Apple has made it clear they're just itching to point the cops in your direction if you misuse their technology seems like a fairly big disincentive when there are other tracking capabilities available. Even if you think your target isn't too likely to find the AirTag, it means you're taking an obvious risk if they do happen to find it.
- tacLog 5y ago
  Do you have to reveal who you are to Apple to use an airtag though? Or with decent operational security can you purchase and activate airtags in an untraceable way? If you can that undermines your point, however if you can't then your making a very good point.
  - RC_ITR 5y ago
    If a stalker is willing to buy a burner iOS device (since that's the means of viewing Airtag data), associate it with an untraceable email/iCloud, and only leave the device's location services on in locations that aren't tied to their identity (since Apple also knows where the tracking phone is), then 'having access to Airtags' probably isn't the 'make or break' factor in whether or not they will stalk someone. If a user has that level of tech savvy, there are plenty of other cellular GPS devices they could use.
    - zimpenfish 5y ago
      > If a user has that level of [spare cash], I suspect they could get several cellular GPS devices for the cost of an iPhone + some AirTags - meaning they could easily offer up one or two sacrificial ones for easy finding in order to hide a smaller one "in plain sight" (as it were.) Or they could just hire a private detective to do some stalking for them. Or someone even less scrupulous for even less money, I'd assume?
  - 5y ago
isatty 5y ago
As an adult with ADHD AirTags have been an absolute godsend. I have them on my keys, wallet and backpack and I’ve pinged them all separately just this week.
- ajdude 5y ago
  I have pinged my keys within the last three hours!
charcircuit 5y ago
>Android users are still vulnerable You misunderstand how airtags work. Airtags can't track an android user. It can only track people with iPhones (and possibly other apple devices).
- m1keil 5y ago
  Airtags leverage the popularity of iPhone devices and use that, not a single phone. Given there's a high probability of someone in the surrounding with an iPhone, you don't have to have an iPhone so that an Airtag will track your movements accurately enough.
- celsoazevedo 5y ago
  That's not how Airtags work. From Apple's website: > Your AirTag sends out a secure Bluetooth signal that can be detected by nearby devices in the Find My network. These devices send the location of your AirTag to iCloud — then you can go to the Find My app and see it on a map. Airtags broadcast their ID via bluetooth and then any nearby iPhone with "Find My" enabled will be looking for these signals. If something is found, it sends the information to Apple and Apple then makes it available to the Airtag user. The person or object doesn't need a phone (be it Android or iPhone) to be tracked. All Airtag needs is to be detected by someone else's iPhone. Why are Android users vulnerable? Because iPhones will automatically warn you if a tag that isn't yours stays near you for a long time while Android users have no idea. Apple released an app for Android, but it requires users to perform manual scans...
  - Too 5y ago
    So just to clarify. The attack is: You as Android user live in a an apartment block. Your neighbor below has iPhone. Your neighbor keep getting warnings on his phone that unrecognized AirTag is nearby. He can’t find any and doesn’t speak with you about it. When moving across the city it would be even worse as there is no neighbor that would get the tracking warnings.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  Most people with Android phones participate in society with everyone else, and don't segregate themselves away from anyone who might have an iPhone.
catlifeonmars 5y ago
> And since most lost items turn into stolen items after a few hours Source?
incongruity 5y ago
> That leaves "finding your keys within your home" as the only truly "officially supported" use case. That is hardly true. Case in point - my wife put down her keys at a store and managed to leave without noticing (this was early after AirTags hit the market). I was driving and we left without recognizing that a few hundred dollars of keys had been lost. Later that day, we noticed. She called a few stores all said there were no keys found. We then tracked the AirTag - and in fact, it was at the store. We returned and were able to locate it, at one of the registers in a lost and found. We never would have found that it not for the AirTag. Since then, we’ve used them to not leave things behind, to find things lost at home and elsewhere. There are indeed many legitimate uses despite your want to claim otherwise.
- mtlynch 5y ago
  >I was driving and we left without recognizing that a few hundred dollars of keys had been lost. What do you mean by "a few hundred dollars of keys?" Do hardware stores charge more than a few dollars per key in your area? Were these private keys to a crypto wallet?
  - matteotom 5y ago
    If your car has a smart key, it can be over $100 to replace and another $100 to have a dealer or locksmith re-program it. Edit, more things that are expensive: - if you live in an apartment with nfc entry, they might charge an arm and a leg to replace it, even if the actual device is only a few dollars - IDK how much it costs to replace an apartment mailbox key, but I've been warned that if you lose one they need to re-key the whole mailbox - maybe you don't feel safe with a house key in the wild and need to re-key your house (same for your car/s) - if you have work keys, they might over-charge to replace lost keys
    - bombcar 5y ago
      And the AirTag is another $30!
      - 5y ago
oxplot 5y ago
Like sibling post mentioned, you don't seem to be the target audience. I know a lot of people, friends and family, who constantly leave stuff behind, in restaurants, other people's places, on the train, in shops, you name it. 99% of the time, no one's gonna steal it, but trying to figure out where the hell you left something, if you do leave stuff behind often, becomes increasingly difficult. With something like an Airtag, it's no longer an issue. You get altered before you get too far, and even if you do, you can figure out later where your stuff is. I once left my umbrella in a hire car. It took me 2 weeks to realize it was missing. Turns out no one touched it and I could see it on the map, in the parking lot of the hire car company. So I showed up, and within minutes, we pinned down which car it was in. Without Airtag, I would not even remember where I could have possibly left it, after two weeks! Learnt my lesson to turn on separation alert after that. Now I need a smaller Airtag for my sunglasses — expensive and easy to leave behind. Needing an Airtag is like needing a case for your phone. A lot of people keep dropping their phone so they put a case on it. In 13 years of owning a smart phone, I've never dropped mine. But I don't claim that phone cases are only useful if you throw your partner's phone off the balcony after a fight.
- anormaluser 5y ago
  How expensive is your umbrella? Just curious.
  - oxplot 5y ago
    $50-ish — but that's not the point. I value my belongings because I spend great deal of time researching and finding products that I love using day in day out (unlike most people who constantly curse at stuff they have). I also modify things I buy to fine tune it to my needs. So even a $50 umbrella is more like $1000 in terms of time I've spent on it and I have no intention of doing it again. This particular umbrella was purchased 20 years ago in Spain.
    - mehdix 5y ago
      I have a bike, with a lock more expensive than the bike itself. Since I value the time that would be necessary to replace the stolen item, not to mention the disturbance caused upon loss. Totally agree with your point.
arsome 5y ago
People are actually selling AirTags with the speakers already disabled, this is a massive hole they're consistently overlooking.
- oxplot 5y ago
  Addressed head-on in the press release: > Display alert with sound: When AirTag automatically emits a sound to alert anyone nearby of its presence and is detected moving with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, we will also display an alert on your device that you can then take action on, like playing a sound or using Precision Finding, if available. This will help in cases where the AirTag may be in a location where it is hard to hear, or if the AirTag speaker has been tampered with.
  - arsome 5y ago
    Did you miss the part where the parent was referring to people who don't have iOS devices?
    - oxplot 5y ago
      yes indeed — I missed it
- fomine3 5y ago
  So alarm shouldn't be considered to anti tracking feature.
reaperducer 5y ago
That leaves "finding your keys within your home" as the only truly "officially supported" use case. People lose stuff all the time. That's why most public places have Lost And Founds.
arvindamirtaa 5y ago
I have around 10 airtags installed in various places. The amount of peace and anxiety relief it brings me is priceless. And none of these problems are airtag specific. You can buy fairly accurate GPS trackers for about $30 that don't even have the android scan feature.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  They are far more noticeable and less suited for covert tracking than AirTags: they need far more power, reducing the time of autonomous work, they are significantly bigger, they need to be in the coverage area of mobile network. Also, AirTags look far more innocent, giving a plausible deniability excuse to a potential stalker. Oh, that's where I lost that key, it's on the floor of your car! With specialised tracker that excuse won't work.
tobylane 5y ago
> And since most lost items turn into stolen items after a few hours Is that a feeling or something you can source?
ksec 5y ago
>I continue to think Apple should have never released AirTags to the public It is the usual Apple strategy for decades. AirTags product play was the technological groundwork for UWB and possibly AR/VR. They always need a product, hobby or something adjacent to iron out all the problems. Chip Packaging, Next Gen OLED, Low Power Profiling all landed on Apple Watch first before they moved to iPhone. The Sound work on AirPod before they moved to HomePod and later MacBook and iPad. This way they could spread their R&D and gain synergy across product range. On the subject of tracking, I am not entirely sure AirTag, or the idea of Tagging ( so to speak ) is as useless as you claim it to be, but I am also extremely uneasy with the concept of AirTag. Like many if not all things in life, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  Oooh, I didn't think of that. The AirTag UWB finding is eerily accurate. If you have an Apple AR/VR headset, you could just stick tiny AirTag-like trackers in your environment and the headset could use those for location.
webmobdev 5y ago
You don't recognize the huge value of AirTags for Apple - the AirTags give Apple a valid excuse to create an ad-hoc network (Find My Network) of Apple devices that can better spy on each user, thus giving them better access to the users personal data regardless of their privacy settings. For example, if you haven't opted out of the Find My Network (turned it off), but turned locations off due to privacy concern, Apple can now get that data from others iDevice users near you. They can use it to upgrade your social graphs (who you hang out with), where you shop and eat outside. With Find My Network enabled, Apple devices are no longer fully powered off but go into a low power mode so that they can still talk to another iDevice through Bluetooth.
sp1rit 5y ago
For Android there is also the free alternative to Apples Android AirTag called "AirGuard"[0]. It was out way sooner than Apples application and seems to be far more advanced than it (i.e. has the features you claimed the apple android air tag application was lacking). [0]: https://f-droid.org/packages/de.seemoo.at_tracking_detection https://f-droid.org/packages/de.seemoo.at_tracking_detection
renewiltord 5y ago
You can post anonymously on a forum against them. I sent them an email thanking them for making them. In the end, I buy their stuff and you guys don’t. They know that.
ok_dad 5y ago
My cat gets out often, and an AirTag allowed us to find her several times over the past year; sometimes notifying us before we even realized it.
- can16358p 5y ago
  Planning the same for my cat who goes out a lot: is there a special collar that has a place for AirTag or what is your setup?
  - ok_dad 5y ago
    I bought a silicone collar thing from Etsy. It works okay but it’s large.
morpheuskafka 5y ago
> Android users are still vulnerable, and these announcements do nothing to reduce that. I feel like this is ignoring the fact that if any company other than Apple made these trackers, it wouldn't do this with anyone's phones. The fact that these work out of the box with iPhones is a bonus, not an entitlement that any phone of any brand should have full support for them without installing any apps and without the user even knowing that the product exists. > All a stalker needs to do, is remove the speaker. I guess they could make the packaging more tamper resistant somehow, but again this is kind of shifting the goals a bit. I don't think it's reasonable to expect that every device will be physically resistant to modifications that would enhance illegal use. An iPhone with the speaker removed and screen cable cut to look dead would make a pretty good tracker too. > AirTags are cheaper than competing GPS trackers, most of which require subscriptions. If you are risking prison time to commit premeditated violence, I think you can spare a few extra bucks for the best technology available. I'm pretty sure professional hitman services run well into the trunk loaded with bags of cash territory.
- apexalpha 5y ago
  The fact that these work out of the box with iPhones is a bonus, not an entitlement that any phone of any brand should have full support for them without installing any apps and without the user even knowing that the product exists. Isn't this the whole clue, rather than just a bonus? When someone slips an AirTag on to you every single iPhone in the world forms a sort of ad-hoc spying network against you. Without you or the iPhone's owners knowing.
  - kennywinker 5y ago
    You can opt out of participating in this spy network, and probably should Settings -> (tap your apple id card at the top) -> Find My -> Find my iPhone -> turn off “Find My Network”
    - apexalpha 5y ago
      That doesn't change a thing. 99,99% of iPhone users won't do this.
denysvitali 5y ago
Android users can use AirGuard, an open source app to detect AirTags following you: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.seemoo.at_tracking_detection.release https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.seemoo.at_t...
xanaxagoras 5y ago
Apple's "Tracker Detect" Android app wants full network access and precise foreground location permissions. They expect me to consent to having my physical location tracked by Apple in order to avoid having my physical location tracked by someone other than Apple. Unbelievable.
- Xylakant 5y ago
  Obviously, the app will need that access privilege to perform its task. Now, you’re in the bind: Do you trust apple to use these privileges on the device only - and not track you - or do you care about being tracked by others. Depends on your risk profile, I’d say.
  - xanaxagoras 5y ago
    I'm more concerned about Apple at the moment, I guess we'll see how common AirTag stalking becomes.
- easrng 5y ago
  Android requires Location permissions to scan for Bluetooth devices because if you can scan for Bluetooth you can sometimes get the user's location from various online databases, so the permissions would be functionally identical if they were sperate anyway.
gsich 5y ago
Android users don't exist in the Apple mindset.
TheRealSteel 5y ago
>All a stalker needs to do, is remove the speaker What am I missing here-- it seems like it would have been trivial for Apple to add a microphone and have the AirTag stop sending location if the speaker isn't working. And have the firmware check the speaker is actually emitting sound, so no amount of physical rewiring can defeat it. Anyone know why they didn't do this?
fingerlocks 5y ago
Another fringe use case no one has mentioned: Finding a detached ski in titty-deep backcountry powder. AirTags can be literally life saving.
- wstrange 5y ago
  Curious if you have tried this. I was under the impression the snow/water content would block the signal
dodgerdan 5y ago
Technology can be used for good and bad. If Apple AirTags disappeared tomorrow Tile and GPS trackers would still exist, but Apple have highlighted legitimate use cases to hundreds of thousands of people like me for theses devices (I use mine for my luggage and my dog).
rekoil 5y ago
> Android users are still vulnerable This isn't really under Apples control though. But I guess they could go out of their way to provide an AOSP pull request, that would be big of them.
tomxor 5y ago
Exactly... They created this public privacy problem for every human Then offered a solution only to it's own customers. That's some dystopian Apple shit right there. Without that network it wouldn't work, you can't do this over the public internet without a swarm of physical devices you control on the other side. Companies like Apple remotely controlling devices used to mainly be a personal issue and thus a personal choice, you can just opt out of Apple to avoid it. There is no opt out of Apple airtags. Now every Apple user is an Apple snoop, your choice to use Apple affects _everyone_ around you... quite literally.
causi 5y ago
AirTags are pretty incredible for finding lost pets.
dot1x 5y ago
> I continue to think Apple should have never released AirTags to the public, and should discontinue it. It's a very limited income stream, with limited use cases, and significantly increases the average person's risk of stalking. You sure have a lot of strong opinions on what apple "should" do. Don't like it? It's a free market. Don't buy it and if you're afraid of being stalked, check out the app they released. I wonder how come all you people come out of the woodwork now that Apple released this thing, yet when Tile did there was no such forced concerned anywhere.
lucasyvas 5y ago
I agree completely. I love the idea of Air Tags, but we all saw this coming a mile away and Apple should never have been allowed to release these. The fact that this post from Apple even EXISTS is direct acknowledgement of this being a horrible, dangerous mistake. I know what they were trying to achieve, but it isn't worth the misuse by a long shot. People will think it's not a problem until someone is tracked with one and killed. The only thing I can think of (besides not selling them) is to open them up so they can be used with Android, and work with Google to add support for them to Android's OS.

heavenlyblue 5y ago

Police in the UK does not follow up on requests to retrieve iPhones from FindMyPhone because the GPS tracking isn't exact enough to find the correct appartment. So for stolen items, it is also useless.

phil21 5y ago
> So for stolen items, it is also useless. It's not. I've recovered my phone after it was stolen by simply showing up to the house it wandered off to the next morning. I've done this a number of times for friends (perhaps not really the brightest idea in retrospect) and you'd be surprised at how many folks simply apologize and hand it over when confronted. If they refuse, at least you tried. Plenty of folks will take matters into their own hands for a $1,000 device that may be a source of their livelihood. Not everyone can simply walk away from that and absorb the loss.
- dylan604 5y ago
  I wonder what the %s are of people that lose a device and do not immediately lock it? Is there a large enough market for buying stolen phones that are locked to make them useable again? Do these people expect to extort a finder's fee? I just don't think "criminal" enough to understand the value of a stolen phone. > Plenty of folks will take matters into their own hands for a $1,000 device I was once mugged at gun point and the 2 guys took my wallet/cash/phone. For some stupid reason, I thought it a good idea to kindly ask for my wallet and phone back by convincing them the phone was several generations older, it would be locked as soon as I returned home, as well as any cards in my wallet being canceled. Also, just to avoid the pain in the ass of dealing with the banks and not going to the DMV for a new ID. The 2 guys laughed, and gave me everything back except the cash. To this day, I don't know what made me think that was going to happen. However, as soon as I turned the corner, I was on the phone with 911.
  - el-salvador 5y ago
    > I thought it a good idea to kindly ask for my wallet and phone back by convincing them the phone was several generations older, it would be locked as soon as I returned home. About a decade ago when El Salvador was more dangerous, cell phone theft at gun point or knife point was more common. And well SIM cards used to be easier to remove from phones. So the "good thieves" would allow you to remove the sim card from the phone before stealing it from you. There were also times where the thief would be "pickier" than you, so if you had a very old or a damaged phone they would just give you your phone back after mugging you. Two tricks were faking an ugly phone while carrying without a battery cover and cover it with duct tape. Or carrying a hidden good phone and a visible old phone.
tyingq 5y ago
I would guess that since it's getting pinged by any/every iPhone that gets within ~10 meters, the AirTags are often more accurate, since "more samples". That probably doesn't help in all situations, but helps in a lot of them.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Possibly even by the criminals own devices. It's kind of genius
mintone 5y ago
This is partially correct but depends on presentation - I tracked a phone to a house, they said they couldn't help because it wasn't accurate enough, I said I was going to knock on the door and demand it back, they turned up in ~3 minutes and recovered it for me, arresting the person who had it at the same time. Because I presented it as "I am going to put myself in danger to recover this item" they were duty bound to act. Still didn't help much as it was held as evidence for literally months.

gjsman-1000 5y ago

Trackers have been around for years. Tile came out in 2014, and Samsung has their own Galaxy tracker line for a while now. Neither have anti-stalking features of any kind to this day. If one was stuck on your car, you wouldn't get an alert or any info on who placed it there, be you an iPhone user or an Android user. And before that, there were GPS trackers which have bigger batteries and were more accurate (if a bit larger and clumsier). But Apple apparently has done it with anti-stalking features but is too high-profile. We can have nice things even if they can get abused, stalkers are going to stalk and have superior alternatives without Apple. These new features are solely intended to scare them off into using their old methods. So if stalkers are going to do what they do anyway, I might as well find my items, thanks. Edit: Also, in your own point, you say "AirTags are cheaper than competing GPS trackers, most of which require subscriptions." Has a tracker costing too much ever stopped a stalker? For a creep, the difference between $25 one time and $10-20 a month for a more-accurate GPS tracker is unimportant. They'll pay the price of Netflix to continue their creepiness.

concinds 5y ago
> But Apple apparently has done it with anti-stalking features but is too high-profile. Remember that stalking isn't a profession; it's often a crime of opportunity, with plenty of reported cases of e.g. people slipping GPS trackers into spouses' cars/bags before or during divorces. Those people aren't sophisticated, and might go on Amazon and see Tiles that won't work (sparse detection network), or GPS trackers that cost the same as AirTags and have a monthly subscription. Or they could just pick a spare AirTag they have, and use that, because they know their spouse has an Android and wouldn't detect it. Again, the problem isn't that AirTags have been nerfed into uselessness because of anti-stalking protection. The problem is that AirTags still, to this day, present a major Android stalking risk (no AirTags notifications on Android with Apple's app, you have to manually scan), and Apple seems uninterested in doing anything about it (or even promising to do anything about it, since this announcement doesn't mention Android).
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  > Those people aren't sophisticated It is foolish to underestimate stalkers and stereotype it as just a crime of opportunity. > "problem is that AirTags still, to this day, present a major Android stalking risk" Ironically, so did Tile for the last 8 years, and Samsung's own Galaxy trackers for Android, but there is no outcry about them. Also, considering how long Tile has been on the market, this doesn't seem like a new issue. Also, Apple has built-in "Find My Friends" in iPhone. A stalker could just flip that on without telling the person being stalked (assuming he/she is close to him/her), and the phone would be tracking them, no tag necessary. Yet nobody ever hears about this being abused much. > "AirTags have been nerfed into uselessness because of anti-stalking protection" Hey, if I lose my wallet in my own home, it's great. If I can't find my wallet at the gas station, I can figure out where in the car it fell. There are plenty of ways it is still plenty useful. Also, if you are complaining about uselessness, maybe Apple should roll-back some anti-stalking protections but you'd be against that too. This leaves you in the impossible position of wanting Apple to restrict it more (reduce stalking) and simultaneously unlock it more (to improve utility), all while competitors don't bother with stalking prevention at all.

colinmhayes 5y ago

Maybe you don't lose stuff as much as other people? My brother was always complaining about losing his wallet, his keys, anything you can think of. I got him a tile, but their product wasn't very accurate. Got him airtags and the problem is solved. Not only are air tags useful, but I'm sure that there are people who would be willing to switch to iOS solely to get access to airtags. That seems pretty valuable to apple.

concinds 5y ago
> Maybe you don't lose stuff as much as other people? I relate to it and respect it, but it's doubtful anyone would switch to iPhone because of AirTags. Samsung and others also make trackers, and you don't need the Find My network if you lost your keys inside your house, any tracker will do. > Not only are air tags useful, but I'm sure that there are people who would be willing to switch to iOS surely to get access to airtags. After a Google search, I can't find a single anecdote of this from reddit or elsewhere. I doubt it's even a blip on Apple's balance sheet.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  From the sound of things the airtags have been legitimately life changing for him. I know that sounds hard to believe, I certainly didn't at first but never losing stuff really seems like a weight off his mind. You're right, there's probably no evidence of people switching to apple for airtags, but that might be because they're such a new and relatively unknown product.
- rainsford 5y ago
  I don't know how common this is, but I bought AirTags as a way to keep track of checked bags when traveling. That is a use-case that specifically benefits from being able to keep track of something outside of my phone's range where full GPS/cell connectivity would be overkill.
- kevinmchugh 5y ago
  My mom likes her iPhone for other reasons but she loves her air tags. She can find her keys in her house, her purse at a party, and her car in a parking lot. She's never leaving the apple ecosystem now.

gambiting 5y ago

>>and significantly increases the average person's risk of stalking. I mean, increase from 0.00001% to 0.0001% is still significant and yet I still wouldn't worry about it in the slightest.

paxys 5y ago
You personally may not have to worry about it, but a handful of well publicized cases of misuse (say someone getting stalked/murdered) will probably be a bigger monetary hit to Apple than their profit from this entire line.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Then that is Apple's concern, in the meantime I'll enjoy using their product for legitimate purposes.
  - camdat 5y ago
    Reminder that the OP of this chain is explicitly coming at this question from Apple's POV. >I continue to think Apple should have never released AirTags to the public, and should discontinue it This discussion is specifically about what Apple should do, so I don't see how this is relevant.
- can16358p 5y ago
  With the same analogy, we should stop producing kitchen knifes because someone may stab someone. We should also stop producing cars because someone may crash someone. Almost every technological device (or even a simple device) can be abused in wrong hands, nothing to do with Apple or AirTags.
  - baq 5y ago
    but that's precisely the wider point: new technology enables new behaviors, but in some cases, benefits are much smaller than downsides. i don't think the jury is out on airtags just yet. it's clearly revolutionary technology in terms of reach, for better or worse.

jpp 5y ago

If I were a guessing person: because future products will be the same size and price as AirTags … what would it look like if an Apple Watch cost $50? It could be used like an AirTag for stalking. So: sort out the privacy implications with a low-priority product like AirTag first. But I am not a guessing person. ;)

moogly 5y ago

> I remember seeing a chills-down-your-spine Apple Watch Series 7 TV ad, that featured beautiful remote nature landscapes, with the audio of 911 calls made from people's Apple Watches whose lives were saved by their Watch. Probably one of Apple's best and most impactful ad in the past decade. One could argue it's pretty distasteful to try to cash in on people's fears.

gjsman-1000 5y ago
Well, that is one of the pillars of advertising these days. Survival food? Fear. Antivirus software? Fear. Expensive Organic Cat Food? Fear (of the inorganic cheap food). LifeLock? Fear. Insurance of any kind? Fear. Solar panels for off-grid? Fear (of the grid going down). Your cousin's extensive gun collection? Fear (if things get bad). And so on...
- dylan604 5y ago
  Some of those might be a stretch to go with fear. Solar panels is pretty much targeted as a way to avoid high utility bills, trying to go green, etc. If you're in a circle of consipiracy types, then maybe the off-grid aspect is preached more. Mainly though, it's just about avoiding the bills, and maybe avoiding power interruptions. That requires batteries though. That might qualify as fear advertising.
- corndoge 5y ago
  Insurance is mere pragmatism. Knowing that bad things happen that require large amounts of money to fix doesn't constitute fear.
concinds 5y ago
And that was the almost-universal response on reddit and YouTube comments, but are those people more, or less likely to buy an Apple Watch? Maybe not for themselves, maybe for their grandparents? Besides, it's the absolute bedrock of modern marketing, from weight loss pills to perfumes to clothing: when ads depict supposed customers smiling with their families, or going on a date, or being the center of attention at a party, it's the exact same psychological trick, twisting the knife of your insecurities, fears and FOMO, just done more subtly.

handmodel 5y ago

For me, 95% of the functionality of Airtags would still be there if it only worked with your own apple devices. I have found airtags for finding things when I lose my keys/wallet around the house. I do leave them at a restaurant tying it to my iPhone would still show the last place I had it.

ninkendo 5y ago
I felt the same way about Tile back in the day when I used it. I didn’t want my tile part of their “network”, I didn’t want other tile users to relay the location, I didn’t want my phone relaying other tile users’ locations. I didn’t want my tiles location going to any server at any point. I just wanted a to be able to make my wallet beep if I’m near enough to it for it to be in range of my phone. But the rest of the “features” couldn’t be disabled, so I threw my tiles out.
withinboredom 5y ago
Years ago, I had a tile on my keys. I left them on top of my car in a parking garage. When I went back, they were gone. Someone took them, probably meaning well but didn’t leave a note saying where they took them to. So that sucked. To this day, despite the tile being in “lost mode”, I’ve never gotten a ping. There’s real value in these trackers, because people pick up things that aren’t theirs.

dylan604 5y ago

does 2) really mean that, or does it mean that many people have downloaded it. does 2) get updated if someone deletes the app?

rainsford 5y ago

I think a major part of the announcement you're skipping over is the clear statement that individual AirTags are linked to specific AppleIDs and Apple will cooperate with law enforcement to help identify the owners of AirTags used for criminal activity. If you're a wannabe stalker, the fact that Apple has made it clear they're just itching to point the cops in your direction if you misuse their technology seems like a fairly big disincentive when there are other tracking capabilities available. Even if you think your target isn't too likely to find the AirTag, it means you're taking an obvious risk if they do happen to find it.

tacLog 5y ago
Do you have to reveal who you are to Apple to use an airtag though? Or with decent operational security can you purchase and activate airtags in an untraceable way? If you can that undermines your point, however if you can't then your making a very good point.
- RC_ITR 5y ago
  If a stalker is willing to buy a burner iOS device (since that's the means of viewing Airtag data), associate it with an untraceable email/iCloud, and only leave the device's location services on in locations that aren't tied to their identity (since Apple also knows where the tracking phone is), then 'having access to Airtags' probably isn't the 'make or break' factor in whether or not they will stalk someone. If a user has that level of tech savvy, there are plenty of other cellular GPS devices they could use.
  - zimpenfish 5y ago
    > If a user has that level of [spare cash], I suspect they could get several cellular GPS devices for the cost of an iPhone + some AirTags - meaning they could easily offer up one or two sacrificial ones for easy finding in order to hide a smaller one "in plain sight" (as it were.) Or they could just hire a private detective to do some stalking for them. Or someone even less scrupulous for even less money, I'd assume?
- 5y ago

isatty 5y ago

As an adult with ADHD AirTags have been an absolute godsend. I have them on my keys, wallet and backpack and I’ve pinged them all separately just this week.

ajdude 5y ago
I have pinged my keys within the last three hours!

charcircuit 5y ago

>Android users are still vulnerable You misunderstand how airtags work. Airtags can't track an android user. It can only track people with iPhones (and possibly other apple devices).

m1keil 5y ago
Airtags leverage the popularity of iPhone devices and use that, not a single phone. Given there's a high probability of someone in the surrounding with an iPhone, you don't have to have an iPhone so that an Airtag will track your movements accurately enough.
celsoazevedo 5y ago
That's not how Airtags work. From Apple's website: > Your AirTag sends out a secure Bluetooth signal that can be detected by nearby devices in the Find My network. These devices send the location of your AirTag to iCloud — then you can go to the Find My app and see it on a map. Airtags broadcast their ID via bluetooth and then any nearby iPhone with "Find My" enabled will be looking for these signals. If something is found, it sends the information to Apple and Apple then makes it available to the Airtag user. The person or object doesn't need a phone (be it Android or iPhone) to be tracked. All Airtag needs is to be detected by someone else's iPhone. Why are Android users vulnerable? Because iPhones will automatically warn you if a tag that isn't yours stays near you for a long time while Android users have no idea. Apple released an app for Android, but it requires users to perform manual scans...
- Too 5y ago
  So just to clarify. The attack is: You as Android user live in a an apartment block. Your neighbor below has iPhone. Your neighbor keep getting warnings on his phone that unrecognized AirTag is nearby. He can’t find any and doesn’t speak with you about it. When moving across the city it would be even worse as there is no neighbor that would get the tracking warnings.
josephcsible 5y ago
Most people with Android phones participate in society with everyone else, and don't segregate themselves away from anyone who might have an iPhone.

catlifeonmars 5y ago

> And since most lost items turn into stolen items after a few hours Source?

incongruity 5y ago

> That leaves "finding your keys within your home" as the only truly "officially supported" use case. That is hardly true. Case in point - my wife put down her keys at a store and managed to leave without noticing (this was early after AirTags hit the market). I was driving and we left without recognizing that a few hundred dollars of keys had been lost. Later that day, we noticed. She called a few stores all said there were no keys found. We then tracked the AirTag - and in fact, it was at the store. We returned and were able to locate it, at one of the registers in a lost and found. We never would have found that it not for the AirTag. Since then, we’ve used them to not leave things behind, to find things lost at home and elsewhere. There are indeed many legitimate uses despite your want to claim otherwise.

mtlynch 5y ago
>I was driving and we left without recognizing that a few hundred dollars of keys had been lost. What do you mean by "a few hundred dollars of keys?" Do hardware stores charge more than a few dollars per key in your area? Were these private keys to a crypto wallet?
- matteotom 5y ago
  If your car has a smart key, it can be over $100 to replace and another $100 to have a dealer or locksmith re-program it. Edit, more things that are expensive: - if you live in an apartment with nfc entry, they might charge an arm and a leg to replace it, even if the actual device is only a few dollars - IDK how much it costs to replace an apartment mailbox key, but I've been warned that if you lose one they need to re-key the whole mailbox - maybe you don't feel safe with a house key in the wild and need to re-key your house (same for your car/s) - if you have work keys, they might over-charge to replace lost keys
  - bombcar 5y ago
    And the AirTag is another $30!
    - 5y ago

oxplot 5y ago

Like sibling post mentioned, you don't seem to be the target audience. I know a lot of people, friends and family, who constantly leave stuff behind, in restaurants, other people's places, on the train, in shops, you name it. 99% of the time, no one's gonna steal it, but trying to figure out where the hell you left something, if you do leave stuff behind often, becomes increasingly difficult. With something like an Airtag, it's no longer an issue. You get altered before you get too far, and even if you do, you can figure out later where your stuff is. I once left my umbrella in a hire car. It took me 2 weeks to realize it was missing. Turns out no one touched it and I could see it on the map, in the parking lot of the hire car company. So I showed up, and within minutes, we pinned down which car it was in. Without Airtag, I would not even remember where I could have possibly left it, after two weeks! Learnt my lesson to turn on separation alert after that. Now I need a smaller Airtag for my sunglasses — expensive and easy to leave behind. Needing an Airtag is like needing a case for your phone. A lot of people keep dropping their phone so they put a case on it. In 13 years of owning a smart phone, I've never dropped mine. But I don't claim that phone cases are only useful if you throw your partner's phone off the balcony after a fight.

anormaluser 5y ago
How expensive is your umbrella? Just curious.
- oxplot 5y ago
  $50-ish — but that's not the point. I value my belongings because I spend great deal of time researching and finding products that I love using day in day out (unlike most people who constantly curse at stuff they have). I also modify things I buy to fine tune it to my needs. So even a $50 umbrella is more like $1000 in terms of time I've spent on it and I have no intention of doing it again. This particular umbrella was purchased 20 years ago in Spain.
  - mehdix 5y ago
    I have a bike, with a lock more expensive than the bike itself. Since I value the time that would be necessary to replace the stolen item, not to mention the disturbance caused upon loss. Totally agree with your point.

arsome 5y ago

People are actually selling AirTags with the speakers already disabled, this is a massive hole they're consistently overlooking.

oxplot 5y ago
Addressed head-on in the press release: > Display alert with sound: When AirTag automatically emits a sound to alert anyone nearby of its presence and is detected moving with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, we will also display an alert on your device that you can then take action on, like playing a sound or using Precision Finding, if available. This will help in cases where the AirTag may be in a location where it is hard to hear, or if the AirTag speaker has been tampered with.
- arsome 5y ago
  Did you miss the part where the parent was referring to people who don't have iOS devices?
  - oxplot 5y ago
    yes indeed — I missed it
fomine3 5y ago
So alarm shouldn't be considered to anti tracking feature.

reaperducer 5y ago

That leaves "finding your keys within your home" as the only truly "officially supported" use case. People lose stuff all the time. That's why most public places have Lost And Founds.

arvindamirtaa 5y ago

I have around 10 airtags installed in various places. The amount of peace and anxiety relief it brings me is priceless. And none of these problems are airtag specific. You can buy fairly accurate GPS trackers for about $30 that don't even have the android scan feature.

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
They are far more noticeable and less suited for covert tracking than AirTags: they need far more power, reducing the time of autonomous work, they are significantly bigger, they need to be in the coverage area of mobile network. Also, AirTags look far more innocent, giving a plausible deniability excuse to a potential stalker. Oh, that's where I lost that key, it's on the floor of your car! With specialised tracker that excuse won't work.

tobylane 5y ago

> And since most lost items turn into stolen items after a few hours Is that a feeling or something you can source?

ksec 5y ago

>I continue to think Apple should have never released AirTags to the public It is the usual Apple strategy for decades. AirTags product play was the technological groundwork for UWB and possibly AR/VR. They always need a product, hobby or something adjacent to iron out all the problems. Chip Packaging, Next Gen OLED, Low Power Profiling all landed on Apple Watch first before they moved to iPhone. The Sound work on AirPod before they moved to HomePod and later MacBook and iPad. This way they could spread their R&D and gain synergy across product range. On the subject of tracking, I am not entirely sure AirTag, or the idea of Tagging ( so to speak ) is as useless as you claim it to be, but I am also extremely uneasy with the concept of AirTag. Like many if not all things in life, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

theshrike79 5y ago
Oooh, I didn't think of that. The AirTag UWB finding is eerily accurate. If you have an Apple AR/VR headset, you could just stick tiny AirTag-like trackers in your environment and the headset could use those for location.

webmobdev 5y ago

You don't recognize the huge value of AirTags for Apple - the AirTags give Apple a valid excuse to create an ad-hoc network (Find My Network) of Apple devices that can better spy on each user, thus giving them better access to the users personal data regardless of their privacy settings. For example, if you haven't opted out of the Find My Network (turned it off), but turned locations off due to privacy concern, Apple can now get that data from others iDevice users near you. They can use it to upgrade your social graphs (who you hang out with), where you shop and eat outside. With Find My Network enabled, Apple devices are no longer fully powered off but go into a low power mode so that they can still talk to another iDevice through Bluetooth.

sp1rit 5y ago

For Android there is also the free alternative to Apples Android AirTag called "AirGuard"[0]. It was out way sooner than Apples application and seems to be far more advanced than it (i.e. has the features you claimed the apple android air tag application was lacking). [0]: https://f-droid.org/packages/de.seemoo.at_tracking_detection https://f-droid.org/packages/de.seemoo.at_tracking_detection

renewiltord 5y ago

You can post anonymously on a forum against them. I sent them an email thanking them for making them. In the end, I buy their stuff and you guys don’t. They know that.

ok_dad 5y ago

My cat gets out often, and an AirTag allowed us to find her several times over the past year; sometimes notifying us before we even realized it.

can16358p 5y ago
Planning the same for my cat who goes out a lot: is there a special collar that has a place for AirTag or what is your setup?
- ok_dad 5y ago
  I bought a silicone collar thing from Etsy. It works okay but it’s large.

morpheuskafka 5y ago

> Android users are still vulnerable, and these announcements do nothing to reduce that. I feel like this is ignoring the fact that if any company other than Apple made these trackers, it wouldn't do this with anyone's phones. The fact that these work out of the box with iPhones is a bonus, not an entitlement that any phone of any brand should have full support for them without installing any apps and without the user even knowing that the product exists. > All a stalker needs to do, is remove the speaker. I guess they could make the packaging more tamper resistant somehow, but again this is kind of shifting the goals a bit. I don't think it's reasonable to expect that every device will be physically resistant to modifications that would enhance illegal use. An iPhone with the speaker removed and screen cable cut to look dead would make a pretty good tracker too. > AirTags are cheaper than competing GPS trackers, most of which require subscriptions. If you are risking prison time to commit premeditated violence, I think you can spare a few extra bucks for the best technology available. I'm pretty sure professional hitman services run well into the trunk loaded with bags of cash territory.

apexalpha 5y ago
The fact that these work out of the box with iPhones is a bonus, not an entitlement that any phone of any brand should have full support for them without installing any apps and without the user even knowing that the product exists. Isn't this the whole clue, rather than just a bonus? When someone slips an AirTag on to you every single iPhone in the world forms a sort of ad-hoc spying network against you. Without you or the iPhone's owners knowing.
- kennywinker 5y ago
  You can opt out of participating in this spy network, and probably should Settings -> (tap your apple id card at the top) -> Find My -> Find my iPhone -> turn off “Find My Network”
  - apexalpha 5y ago
    That doesn't change a thing. 99,99% of iPhone users won't do this.

denysvitali 5y ago

Android users can use AirGuard, an open source app to detect AirTags following you: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.seemoo.at_tracking_detection.release https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.seemoo.at_t...

xanaxagoras 5y ago

Apple's "Tracker Detect" Android app wants full network access and precise foreground location permissions. They expect me to consent to having my physical location tracked by Apple in order to avoid having my physical location tracked by someone other than Apple. Unbelievable.

Xylakant 5y ago
Obviously, the app will need that access privilege to perform its task. Now, you’re in the bind: Do you trust apple to use these privileges on the device only - and not track you - or do you care about being tracked by others. Depends on your risk profile, I’d say.
- xanaxagoras 5y ago
  I'm more concerned about Apple at the moment, I guess we'll see how common AirTag stalking becomes.
easrng 5y ago
Android requires Location permissions to scan for Bluetooth devices because if you can scan for Bluetooth you can sometimes get the user's location from various online databases, so the permissions would be functionally identical if they were sperate anyway.

gsich 5y ago

Android users don't exist in the Apple mindset.

TheRealSteel 5y ago

>All a stalker needs to do, is remove the speaker What am I missing here-- it seems like it would have been trivial for Apple to add a microphone and have the AirTag stop sending location if the speaker isn't working. And have the firmware check the speaker is actually emitting sound, so no amount of physical rewiring can defeat it. Anyone know why they didn't do this?

fingerlocks 5y ago

Another fringe use case no one has mentioned: Finding a detached ski in titty-deep backcountry powder. AirTags can be literally life saving.

wstrange 5y ago
Curious if you have tried this. I was under the impression the snow/water content would block the signal

dodgerdan 5y ago

Technology can be used for good and bad. If Apple AirTags disappeared tomorrow Tile and GPS trackers would still exist, but Apple have highlighted legitimate use cases to hundreds of thousands of people like me for theses devices (I use mine for my luggage and my dog).

rekoil 5y ago

> Android users are still vulnerable This isn't really under Apples control though. But I guess they could go out of their way to provide an AOSP pull request, that would be big of them.

tomxor 5y ago

Exactly... They created this public privacy problem for every human Then offered a solution only to it's own customers. That's some dystopian Apple shit right there. Without that network it wouldn't work, you can't do this over the public internet without a swarm of physical devices you control on the other side. Companies like Apple remotely controlling devices used to mainly be a personal issue and thus a personal choice, you can just opt out of Apple to avoid it. There is no opt out of Apple airtags. Now every Apple user is an Apple snoop, your choice to use Apple affects _everyone_ around you... quite literally.

causi 5y ago

AirTags are pretty incredible for finding lost pets.

dot1x 5y ago

> I continue to think Apple should have never released AirTags to the public, and should discontinue it. It's a very limited income stream, with limited use cases, and significantly increases the average person's risk of stalking. You sure have a lot of strong opinions on what apple "should" do. Don't like it? It's a free market. Don't buy it and if you're afraid of being stalked, check out the app they released. I wonder how come all you people come out of the woodwork now that Apple released this thing, yet when Tile did there was no such forced concerned anywhere.

lucasyvas 5y ago

I agree completely. I love the idea of Air Tags, but we all saw this coming a mile away and Apple should never have been allowed to release these. The fact that this post from Apple even EXISTS is direct acknowledgement of this being a horrible, dangerous mistake. I know what they were trying to achieve, but it isn't worth the misuse by a long shot. People will think it's not a problem until someone is tracked with one and killed. The only thing I can think of (besides not selling them) is to open them up so they can be used with Android, and work with Google to add support for them to Android's OS.