3 ms·

I know what this guy is going through. My house (actually just out in front) is some sort of default location for Find My in my small town, so the Sheriff Dept

I know what this guy is going through. My house (actually just out in front) is some sort of default location for Find My in my small town, so the Sheriff Dept used to show up on occasion looking for an iPad or an iPhone — occasionally with really angry victims standing in the background. Yes, I have a bunch of iPads in my house. No, none of them are yours. If any Apple people are listening, I’d love to get this default location moved about 30 feet to the southwest.

neilalexander 4y ago
I would be willing to bet that this is something to do with a nearby Wi-Fi network that either has a duplicate BSSID to some other network, or has at some point been physically moved, confusing the Wi-Fi geolocation of nearby devices.
mcv 4y ago
And it's not like this is some unexpected side effect. Many years ago, there was already a story about people showing up at some farm in Kansas that happened to be what geolocation services considered the center of the US, and therefore the default location of any device of which they only knew it was in the US. Geolocation services should not give specific coordinates if they don't know where something is. Give a range that makes clear how uncertain the location is. And these sort of "Find My" services need to make clear that the location they're giving is probably not the location where your device is. It's basically making false accusations, and that can be incredibly dangerous.
- neilalexander 4y ago
  > Give a range that makes clear how uncertain the location is. In fairness to Find My, it tries to do this already. A light blue circle surrounding the item shows the estimated precision of the location. I suspect there are people that don't interpret it that way and instead just go to where the icon in the centre of the circle is.
  - toss1 4y ago
    Umm, that blue circle could easily be interpreted as a larger circle display to make the point-location easier to see. There's nothing visible that would indicate otherwise. Especially in the context of a "Find My Thing" app., when users are already in an anxious state when opening it. The actual accuracy/uncertainty MUST be displayed. "Point X with uncertainty of 10 meters" vs. "Within 3km of Cell Tower Y" vs. "Point X somewhere in Texas" are all way the hell different. Those differences must be emphasized at first-order priority in the UI to any user of sub-average intelligence who is already in a stressed state of mind. This is the most basic human factors engineering - recognize what your user is attempting to do, how they are attempting to do it and under what conditions (e.g., stressed, time pressure, etc.), then design to minimize their workload to actually achieve their goal. "But I displayed the data!" is not enough. This is a hard fail.

neilalexander 4y ago

I would be willing to bet that this is something to do with a nearby Wi-Fi network that either has a duplicate BSSID to some other network, or has at some point been physically moved, confusing the Wi-Fi geolocation of nearby devices.

mcv 4y ago

And it's not like this is some unexpected side effect. Many years ago, there was already a story about people showing up at some farm in Kansas that happened to be what geolocation services considered the center of the US, and therefore the default location of any device of which they only knew it was in the US. Geolocation services should not give specific coordinates if they don't know where something is. Give a range that makes clear how uncertain the location is. And these sort of "Find My" services need to make clear that the location they're giving is probably not the location where your device is. It's basically making false accusations, and that can be incredibly dangerous.

neilalexander 4y ago
> Give a range that makes clear how uncertain the location is. In fairness to Find My, it tries to do this already. A light blue circle surrounding the item shows the estimated precision of the location. I suspect there are people that don't interpret it that way and instead just go to where the icon in the centre of the circle is.
- toss1 4y ago
  Umm, that blue circle could easily be interpreted as a larger circle display to make the point-location easier to see. There's nothing visible that would indicate otherwise. Especially in the context of a "Find My Thing" app., when users are already in an anxious state when opening it. The actual accuracy/uncertainty MUST be displayed. "Point X with uncertainty of 10 meters" vs. "Within 3km of Cell Tower Y" vs. "Point X somewhere in Texas" are all way the hell different. Those differences must be emphasized at first-order priority in the UI to any user of sub-average intelligence who is already in a stressed state of mind. This is the most basic human factors engineering - recognize what your user is attempting to do, how they are attempting to do it and under what conditions (e.g., stressed, time pressure, etc.), then design to minimize their workload to actually achieve their goal. "But I displayed the data!" is not enough. This is a hard fail.