AirTag review: A neat product at odds with Apple’s pro-privacy messaging

Apple made the most privacy-friendly tracker, but that's not saying much.

Read the whole story

 

[N35t0r]

"Privacy friendly tracker"

Yeah, ok.

 

[IronTek]

Not my own thought but as an adjacent subject: Apple really should have incorporated an AirTag into the new AppleTV remote.

I'm quite sure we'll see this in future iterations, but it would be nice to have now, considering how infrequently they update the AppleTV.

 

[Landak]

Each AirTag can be described as a small, silver metal disc embedded inside a slightly larger white disc. All in all, it's 1.26 inches in diameter and 0.31 inches thick. It weighs 0.39 ounces.

Just as a service for the non-US readers (like me) that: is approximately 32 mm by 8 mm and weighs 11 g.

 

[fluorogrol]

Each AirTag can be described as a small, silver metal disc embedded inside a slightly larger white disc. All in all, it's 1.26 inches in diameter and 0.31 inches thick. It weighs 0.39 ounces.

For the rest of us: 3.2 cm diameter; 0.8 cm thick; weighs 11 g.

(I can manage a good enough inches > cm conversion in my head, not so much fractions of an ounce.)

Edit: I see I was metric ninja'd.

 

[ChristianSilver]

Bold move including your email address.

 

[Olletes]

I’ve seen a couple of videos showing how easy it is to remove the speaker. With no speaker would that make using it nefariously even easier?

 

[tjukken]

I want one I can clip on my phone, because I misplace it all the time. Oh, wait..

 

[tjukken]

"Accessories are necessary for some uses and can cost as much as the device itself"

Odd that the Hermes accessories weren't mentioned. They can cost more than an iPad.

They can hardly be called 'necessary' now can they?

 

[earlsven]

The emoji idea is clever, because there are many emoji options that might fit whatever personal item you're tracking with the AirTag.

I don't know what you're tracking with your AirTags, but none of the Emoji options I could chose from were remotely relevant to things I might want to track. I was frankly disappointed by the selection of Emoji when ordering!

 

[GreyAreaUK]

I want one I can clip on my phone, because I misplace it all the time. Oh, wait..

That's ok, Apple have thought of this and have a solution: simply purchase a second iPhone.

You're welcome

 

[azazel1024]

For the separated from, not sure how to make it better without big downsides. What if you are using it by throwing it in checked luggage? I don’t think you want it beeping after a few minutes or even a few hours.

Or you are leaving your bags in your hotel room with it still in there and wandering the city for the day. Or in your camera bag and intentionally leaving it in your room for the day.

I get it and 3 days is awfully long. But IMHO if you shorten it a whole lot more than that, you are a lot more likely to cause a lot of negative downsides. Not sure how loud that beeping is (I’d hope fairly quite, but you know easy enough to hear in a quiet room. But your hotel room beeping all day long is likely to alarm or annoy someone. And run down the battery.

When it comes down to it, there are plenty of trackers out there and the bar for stalking isn’t high anymore sadly. That Apple has done some leg work on it is impressive. I do hope they improve it. Are any products 100% perfect over time? I hope they take real world feedback and adjust. Maybe the “sticky” time or away from your devices time does need to be shorter.

PS one other thing I was thinking of is leaving a tile in your car so you can find it again. You’d probably want at least a few hours before it would beep. All day long is probably the best (at least 12hrs) (which doesn’t solve leaving one in the airport parking lot for a few days. But I guess it is what it is).

 

[TheArsTrev]

Wouldn't it make tracking non-Apple users easy rather than just focusing on 'Android users' in your 'UGLY' section...what does having an Android phone have to do with anything?

 

[tjukken]

I want one I can clip on my phone, because I misplace it all the time. Oh, wait..

That's ok, Apple have thought of this and have a solution: simply purchase a second iPhone.

You're welcome

Thank you. I'll keep that one in a drawer and only pull it out when I need to find the other.

 

[AER]

The “privacy” concerns are way overblown IMO. Yes, people can potentially mis-use it. But people also have a million other options to do the same. In my view, this is like reviewing a camera with a telescopic lens and saying “Sure, it’s nice that you can take pictures of things that are far away, but think about how easily someone could misuse this to take pictures through another person’s window!”

 

[azazel1024]

I want one I can clip on my phone, because I misplace it all the time. Oh, wait..

That's ok, Apple have thought of this and have a solution: simply purchase a second iPhone.

You're welcome

OH! I know this one. Get an apple HomePod mini. Then you can just ask Siri where your phone is and it’ll start playing the lost phone sound. Or ask where your wife or kid’s phone is and the same.

Now if I could just do that with my stinking AppleTV remote. IMHO once I get back to real life one of these months I just might pick a couple up for my keys and my wife’s keys. Not sure if I’ll do one for my wallet. I do misplace it, but it is exceedingly rare.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

I just dont see the point. Designed to be useless for tracking stolen items, which is the appeal of it, as it tells the thief they are being tracked.

What's left, find the keys you left in your coat pocket? Great, apple reinvents the whistle keyring.

Do you understand how these work? These don't just work if the Tag is near your computer or phone, they work with anyone else's device too:

The AirTag isn't a GPS-enabled device. Rather, it communicates with devices in Apple's Find My network with regular pings. So the more iPhones, iPads, or Macs are connected to the Internet near the AirTag, the faster it will be found and the more accurate its reported location will be.

Ostensibly, if one of your Apple devices isn't available, the Tag will give the nearest Apple device its precise location. That Apple device then will ostensibly send the location data to Apple's servers. You can then see the location data in the Find My screen.

There are likely endless uses for this that have nothing to do with theft or your keys.

 

[NomadUK]

Ars's own article describes how iFixit came up with an economical alternative to Apple's loops and keyrings for AirTags.

iFixit's solution to the much-demanded keyring hole is—what else—a power drill! The teardown experts found some suitable dead space inside the AirTag that somehow isn't blocked by either the battery, speaker, or circuit board, and after some careful drilling, iFixit's AirTag now has a keychain hole with the least possible bulk. "The AirTag survived the operation like a champ and works as if nothing happened," the site says. iFixit went on to note that the sound profile "didn’t seem to change much," but the IP67 dust and water resistance rating is now greatly compromised.

 

[AWilco]

1. "Apple's _____ is not a revolutionary new product. Rather, it's a significant refinement of an idea that, up until now, has been fairly niche" describes many Apple products.

2. What does it do? Why would I want one? It's a dozen paragraphs in, and not even the first paragraph of the Functionality section, before the "review" gets to any function or purpose.

3. My take-away is, if you buy into all things Apple, this is another thing. If you don't, this is another thing you can ignore.

I agree the article could be improved with a fuller description at the top, it does rather assume the reader knows what an AirTag is. the sub-heading is "Apple made the most privacy-friendly tracker, but that's not saying much." which gives a good indication of what we are talking about.

Perhaps make the early AirTag mention a link to the product announcement news post or similar which provides a quck overview of what it is?

 

[readykilowatt]

This seems like they missed an opportunity for an ARKit based app. Every WWDC they highlight ARKit and every year there's not much more than the measure app, at least for the general public. Imagine Pokémon go but with actual things.

 

[azazel1024]

I just dont see the point. Designed to be useless for tracking stolen items, which is the appeal of it, as it tells the thief they are being tracked.

What's left, find the keys you left in your coat pocket? Great, apple reinvents the whistle keyring.

Then it’s not for you. Simple as that.

It does help people track things they’ve lost. I am generally not worried about someone stealing my keys. My phone already has a stolen phone tracking ability. Maybe it would be useful in my car if someone stole it. But hey, people make services and devices for that also.

This does seem to work really well in urban areas or around your house if you misplace stuff.

And I can see it being useful somewhere like a mall or event parking lot. Hell maybe even in general just parking in a city when visiting and leaving one in your car. Have I ever struggled for hours finding my car? No. But I’ll fully admit there have been times it took me 10 minutes as I walked near my car half a dozen times because I swore I parked further or closer to the building or a few rows over.

Honestly this could be useful in my hunting pack. I have not yet done it, but there are times I’ve needed to put my pack (often while carrying a climbing tree stand) and bow/rifle down and walk away and I am waiting to lose them. I don’t put my phone down. And it isn’t like I am wandering miles away. But a few dozen yards, possibly in the dark trying to find something literally camouflaged...

Not sure I will get any. Probably will get one to try it out.

 

[seraphimcaduto]

I want one I can clip on my phone, because I misplace it all the time. Oh, wait..

I’m sure this is probably /s but FYI the Apple Watch DOES have this feature. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost my iPhone and use my watch to ping it.

 

[Mr_D]

I’m looking forward to the different accessories people come up with. It’s a bit too thick to fit in a wallet (it’s about the thickness of 10 credit cards, way more than I would carry) so I envision a wallet that has an air tag “socket”. Maybe there’s another solution.

 

[Anxiousele1980]

The “privacy” concerns are way overblown IMO. Yes, people can potentially mis-use it. But people also have a million other options to do the same. In my view, this is like reviewing a camera with a telescopic lens and saying “Sure, it’s nice that you can take pictures of things that are far away, but think about how easily someone could misuse this to take pictures through another person’s window!”

I think the issue is it becomes a lot easier to abuse. It’s a $29 device with a huge built in network. Compare that with what was available before - more expensive gps trackers and hopefully you can see why this is an issue.

 

[YetAnotherSecretAnonymousPseudonyme]

The 3 day limit could have some drawbacks too : imagine I attach on of those to something I leave at a secondary home. With this sort of system in place it will beep forever until the next time I come back.

(Disclaimer I am not someone who owns a secondary home in the country side, but I do know some people who do)

 

[fitten]

3. My take-away is, if you buy into all things Apple, this is another thing. If you don't, this is another thing you can ignore.

Not really, it's literally a device that a nefarious Apple product owner can use to track someone who doesn't own Apple products and they have almost no defense against other than finding it or after some period of time it will start making a noise so they may notice it. With the handy straps shown in the article, I imagine someone could put one of these in the undercarriage of a car and track the car. And if the car's owner doesn't have Apple products, he/she may never know it's there.

 

[azazel1024]

I want one I can clip on my phone, because I misplace it all the time. Oh, wait..

I’m sure this is probably /s but FYI the Apple Watch DOES have this feature. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost my iPhone and use my watch to ping it.

I get why Apple doesn’t open it up, but I do wish my Fitbit could ping my phone so I could find it sometimes. But I can use my HomePod. Maybe some day I might consider an Apple Watch (but battery life is far too short my use cases, I need at least 4 days of normal use battery life).

 

[darkxale]

One thing omitted in the review:
Airtags cannot be shared.

If you need multiple people to track down an item, you'll need multiple Airtags.

 

[adrianovaroli]

I want one I can clip on my phone, because I misplace it all the time. Oh, wait..

That's ok, Apple have thought of this and have a solution: simply purchase a second iPhone.

You're welcome

Ok, but how do I clip the iPhone to the iPhone?

 

[Me Myself And I1]

"Lacks the exciting AR features early reports said were coming"

So reality doesn't match an unsubstantiated rumor, hence, it's bad?

 

[andy o]

I may get some of these, though I only have an iPhone 2020 SE, and it's a secondary phone. It would be that much better than the Tile Pro I have that I bought after I lost my car keys at a mall (f*ckin $400 Fob for a cheapish ass Mazda 3???).

Also I have no sympathy for Tile now that they're feeling the hot competition under their asses and are all scrambling for lawsuits. For the longest time they were coasting on their mediocre hardware and "network" and leaving fundamental non-service functions like disconnection notifications to the "premium" subscription service. I mean, even my freaking Garmin watch vibrates when it disconnects with my phone. Not to mention their first products didn't even have a replaceable battery.

 

[xyzzy01]

I want one I can clip on my phone, because I misplace it all the time. Oh, wait..

For us, Apple has made the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch has an easily accessible soft button for making your iPhone ping... One of the best features of the watch, and something I use way too frequently.

 

[the.mighty.oracle]

I want one I can clip on my phone, because I misplace it all the time. Oh, wait..

Actually, that's my first problem with it vs the competition. The tile can tell your phone to go ballistic, allowing your keyring to do the job for your phone. I get the impression that the AirTag will not replace tile in the keyring application given that and the lack of keyringhole... plus it's a worse shape for a keyring than the tile, which is fairly flat. I could totally see getting some for other things, like my pet or my property, or maybe my kid's backpack.