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i am unsure how AirTags can be recommended by anyone in any situation to prevent theft. their "anti-tracking" features make them completely useless in any situ

i am unsure how AirTags can be recommended by anyone in any situation to prevent theft. their "anti-tracking" features make them completely useless in any situation where theft is involved (or theft happens after loosing the item). the thief is alerted to their presence automatically and can disable them quickly. perfect for thieves! AirTags can only be used for misplaced items, any utility for situations involving theft is completely negated by their "anti tracking" features. another case where giving a 0.01% case too much attention makes the normal 99.99% use case completely impossible..

briffle 3y ago
I have a 'family' setup in our iphones for my wife and kids. My wife bought some airtags and put them in the cases for our kids expensive musical instruments, her keys, etc. We are configured as a family to share apps, set screen times, etc, but I can't see where those tags are, only my wife can on her phone. Worse, I get warnings every time I use her car for the day, that it found an uknown airtag riding with me. Or when she rides with me in the passenger seat of my vehicle, and has her purse with her. They are essentially less than worthless, and cause a ton of false alerts, so 3/4ths of our family have them blocked and ignore any airtag alert, because we assume its one of hers.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  And if your kids are young enough not to have their own phone, when they go to school with an AirTag it'll start beeping a while later just to make sure nobody is stalking them. It was a nice idea until all the people worried about stalking got involved. Never mind that a skilled stalker won't waste time or take the risk with an AirTag.
DaveExeter 3y ago
What if the thieves don't have an iPhone?
- dinkblam 3y ago
  thieves using Android can just install the "air tag anti tracking" app for Android.
crhulls 3y ago
I'm glad someone brought this up. I'm the CEO of Tile and we launched an anti-theft feature for this reason. We allow you to turn off anti-stalking features if you agree to strict penalties for misuse and verify yourself with a real ID. https://chrishulls.medium.com/tile-is-taking-a-different-approach-to-the-bluetooth-industrys-theft-and-stalking-problems-bd92d3ae4f3c https://chrishulls.medium.com/tile-is-taking-a-different-app...
- true_religion 3y ago
  Apple in most cases already has our real ID. And stalkers are already determined to commit crimes. Agreeing to civil penalties isn’t going to deter someone who already doesn’t fear criminal imprisonment.
  - alfalfasprout 3y ago
    And those stalkers could just buy any other GPS tracker out there which would be more effective than an airtag anyways. It's all just posturing by Apple and all to the detriment of 99.99% of their user base.
- sleepybrett 3y ago
  How much customer data are you giving to your corporate owners? How much are you selling to third parties? How much are your owners selling to third parties?
- sigmar 3y ago
  How do you verify the government ID used belongs to the person disabling the anti-stalker feature? There's a huge market for fake state IDs and stolen/leaked photos of various gov't IDs
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    Seems like a pretty unrealistic bar to set. You can use government ID to empty a bank account and air and tile stocking seems way lower Stakes.
bsder 3y ago
> another case where giving a 0.01% case too much attention makes the normal 99.99% use case completely impossible.. But the 0.01% will give Apple horrible press, so it's more important than anything else. The fact that tags aren't useful to you isn't the issue.
rootusrootus 3y ago
Yeah after buying a few AirTags early on, I've largely given up on them. Too much of a hassle as it tries not to be usable to stalk, so I can't use it for the other handy use cases.
- asdff 3y ago
  Good for checked luggage or bags you might leave behind somewhere.
  - AustinDev 3y ago
    Best use-case by far. I was traveling internationally, and the airline left my luggage back in Europe. The airline had no idea where my bags were but, I was able to tell them exactly which terminal my bags got loaded onto. (where they lost signal) They looked up which flight departed that terminal at that time and were then able to route my bags to my final location and I had them within 24 hours.

briffle 3y ago

I have a 'family' setup in our iphones for my wife and kids. My wife bought some airtags and put them in the cases for our kids expensive musical instruments, her keys, etc. We are configured as a family to share apps, set screen times, etc, but I can't see where those tags are, only my wife can on her phone. Worse, I get warnings every time I use her car for the day, that it found an uknown airtag riding with me. Or when she rides with me in the passenger seat of my vehicle, and has her purse with her. They are essentially less than worthless, and cause a ton of false alerts, so 3/4ths of our family have them blocked and ignore any airtag alert, because we assume its one of hers.

rootusrootus 3y ago
And if your kids are young enough not to have their own phone, when they go to school with an AirTag it'll start beeping a while later just to make sure nobody is stalking them. It was a nice idea until all the people worried about stalking got involved. Never mind that a skilled stalker won't waste time or take the risk with an AirTag.

DaveExeter 3y ago

What if the thieves don't have an iPhone?

dinkblam 3y ago
thieves using Android can just install the "air tag anti tracking" app for Android.

crhulls 3y ago

I'm glad someone brought this up. I'm the CEO of Tile and we launched an anti-theft feature for this reason. We allow you to turn off anti-stalking features if you agree to strict penalties for misuse and verify yourself with a real ID. https://chrishulls.medium.com/tile-is-taking-a-different-approach-to-the-bluetooth-industrys-theft-and-stalking-problems-bd92d3ae4f3c https://chrishulls.medium.com/tile-is-taking-a-different-app...

true_religion 3y ago
Apple in most cases already has our real ID. And stalkers are already determined to commit crimes. Agreeing to civil penalties isn’t going to deter someone who already doesn’t fear criminal imprisonment.
- alfalfasprout 3y ago
  And those stalkers could just buy any other GPS tracker out there which would be more effective than an airtag anyways. It's all just posturing by Apple and all to the detriment of 99.99% of their user base.
sleepybrett 3y ago
How much customer data are you giving to your corporate owners? How much are you selling to third parties? How much are your owners selling to third parties?
sigmar 3y ago
How do you verify the government ID used belongs to the person disabling the anti-stalker feature? There's a huge market for fake state IDs and stolen/leaked photos of various gov't IDs
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  Seems like a pretty unrealistic bar to set. You can use government ID to empty a bank account and air and tile stocking seems way lower Stakes.

bsder 3y ago

> another case where giving a 0.01% case too much attention makes the normal 99.99% use case completely impossible.. But the 0.01% will give Apple horrible press, so it's more important than anything else. The fact that tags aren't useful to you isn't the issue.

rootusrootus 3y ago

Yeah after buying a few AirTags early on, I've largely given up on them. Too much of a hassle as it tries not to be usable to stalk, so I can't use it for the other handy use cases.

asdff 3y ago
Good for checked luggage or bags you might leave behind somewhere.
- AustinDev 3y ago
  Best use-case by far. I was traveling internationally, and the airline left my luggage back in Europe. The airline had no idea where my bags were but, I was able to tell them exactly which terminal my bags got loaded onto. (where they lost signal) They looked up which flight departed that terminal at that time and were then able to route my bags to my final location and I had them within 24 hours.