I had such high hopes for airtags, but...

By techluver, 12 April, 2021

Forum
Apple Hardware and Compatible Accessories

I wanted everyone else's take on this.
First, I'll say that the airtags have not been released. However, Apple has announced their "find my" network, which allows people to have accessories that can be found using the "find my" feature.
At first, I was really excited about this! I thought it would be an amazing way of keeping track of things if they were stolen.
However, I just saw a youtuber who said that if there is an unknown "find my" device hidden in your things, your iPhone will notify you of this. Doesn't this completely defeat the purpose of find my? A thief is going to simply throw the find my tag out the window when their iPhone alerts them that there's a find my tag nearby, making it completely useless!
The whole purpose of find my is that the thief doesn't know that the find my tag is traveling with the user! Apparently the feature can be turned off, but it'll be turned off on the iPhone that would be doing the alerting, not the iPhone that controls the tag. I did decide to do my own research, and I did find this claim supported by this article:
https://www.fox5dc.com/news/new-iphone-feature-will-alert-you-if-youre-being-stalked
.
I understand that stalking is an issue, but by adding this feature they have basically defeated the usefullness of find my for retrieving stolen things. What does everyone think?

Options

Comments

By Andy Lane on Monday, April 12, 2021 - 17:15

I hadn’t considered it this way round, I’d thought how great it was that they were notifying people they may be being stalked but you are absolutely right, If someone steels my stuff and gets a notification I can track them then whats the point beyond finding misplaced things. I think this one is a wait and see because even if the feature is meant to work this way you can almost garenty there will be an outcry and apple will be forced to re-design. Maybe this kind of issue is why the tags are taking so long to finalise?

By DPinWI on Monday, April 12, 2021 - 18:31

I'm interested in Air Tags to find things I may have misplaced,or to remind me to get something I accidentally left behind. I'm not worried about attempting to recover a stolen device. I figure if it's gone, it's gone.

By aaron ramirez on Monday, April 12, 2021 - 21:35

A thief that might steal one of your possessions isn't just going to leave the Airtag attached to the object in question. They're going to remove and dispose of it.

By Lou on Friday, April 16, 2021 - 14:44

Agree with some of the others here. The first thing a thief will do is to remove the apple tag and dispose of it.

.

By DPinWI on Monday, April 19, 2021 - 16:15

I simply don't see the use case of putting a tag on an Apple device to track it in case of theft. We already have the Find My function, and that can't be peeled off and tossed.

I'm interested in the Tags, but not sold on why I would need them. I can ping my phone from my watch on the very rare occasion I lose track of it. I am very careful with my keys and such. The one thing I have considered is putting a tag on the door to my shed out in the back of my property. I usually get there without issue, but sometimes it would be nice for an audible beacon. I don't need to travel as much as I once did, so luggage tracking isn't a major concern.