The latest event from Apple unveiled a number of interesting new products. One of these new products is AirTags. These small, circular devices offer the ability to locate keys, bags, wallets, and essentially anything they're attached to. Could they offer a new layer of security that can help prevent photographers from losing valuable equipment?
In a recent video, Marques Brownlee discusses and demonstrates how the AirTags work. Similar to what a company called Tile offers with its Bluetooth tracker, Apple has produced its own version.
The biggest physical difference between Tile and Apple is that the former has a hole built into it. This means that the Tile device can be attached to keys without requiring additional accessories. Apple AirTags, however, require accessories such as AirTag loops and AirTag keys ring in order for them to be attached properly.
Despite this, the AirTags offer a number of exciting new features. For instance, precision finder seems to be an incredible way to quickly and effectively find whatever it is that you're looking for. The AirTags can also ping different iPhones if you're too far away from it and another Apple iPhone is in the vicinity.
Finally, each AirTag can be marked with information such as a phone number, so anyone that finds it can easily get in contact.
For photographers, these AirTags could be a great help to the industry in preventing the loss of gear. Although they haven't been properly reviewed or tested just yet, initial reviews seem positive enough to get a little excited about them.
From everything I have read, Apple has explicitly prioritized the privacy of humans in developing AirTags, and they are not being recommended by the company as an anti-theft device. Besides being very passive devices in general, requiring a phone to nearby, my understanding is that when they either notify a thief’s phone that the AirTag has been placed into lost mode, or when the thief’s phone is eventually alerted that they have been traveling with an AirTag, the thief can simply block their location. They were explicitly designed this way to ensure that they cannot be used by stalkers as a means of tracking another person.
AirTags are really just meant for things like finding your keys in your couch.
Indeed. At Apple HQ, where everyone seems young, attractive, and well-compensated, stalking is viewed as a worse problem than theft. In the real world, I'm not sure that's true—but the result is that Apple has designed a product that has little utility as a means to recover stolen gear. If you lose your keys though, you're golden.
This is a dangerously misguided comment. Stalking is an incredibly common, and often deadly occurrence, whether it’s directly impacted you or not. My mother was simply a nurse, and was stalked by the adult child of one of her patients. This is also a extremely prevalent problem and danger in child custody cases. Apple absolutely made the correct decision here, and if you are worried about theft, it’s time to invest in business insurance.
And selling accessories. First and foremost
"the thief can simply block their location" - Sure, but any iOS device in the vicinity can confirm the general location.
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I use Lightbug trackers in all my cases and bags. Great for world wide use etc. https://thelightbug.com/
If you carry someone else's tag and have an iphone, you'll be warned and can turn it off. So it's useless as an anti-theft device, unless the thieve also got your phone, or doesn't have an iphone.
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Great article! The air tags are so handy for photographers. I cant wait to attach one to each of my lens caps.
Cause you lose the caps in the couch?
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Gawd...When will the Apple Fanboy hysteria die!?! Tile has had products for years that work. Well.
Anyone who buys these are fools. You HAVE to buy accessories, just to ATTACH these to anything (or super glue).
I can't wait till Apple "produces" a car (made by Hyundai) for twice what the same car will cost without the Apple sign... And every kewl kid buys one.
"...haven't been properly reviewed or tested just yet, initial reviews seem positive enough to get a little excited about them."
Really?
These have one HUGE benefit over tile in that it can be tracked why any iphone passively. I don't know anyone who has a tile or the app installed. Without the app a tile will never be found. Airtags are pinging every iPhone that goes by without the owner ever knowing and that's huge. I agree with apple fanboys being ridiculous but in the case of airtags, they seem to have made a surprisingly good product.
Here's a security related article about airdrop - https://www.usenix.org/system/files/sec21fall-heinrich.pdf and this: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/23/airdrop-researchers-security-flaw/
The question here is - is airdrop inside the airtag or not? Apple speaks about NFC - but they also speak about Bluetooth. With NFC the distances is 10cm, 1m or 10m. What does it use?
"According to the researchers, Apple was informed of the flaw in May of 2019, and despite several software updates since then, the flaw remains." - this means it may be a heavy design error that's not correctable.
"The AirTag uses both Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) and the U1 chip for iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 users. There is no Wi-Fi needed for an AirTag to work." And there's more than this - and i don't like it at all! https://www.imore.com/airtags
Classic Apple. Produce a product that others have perfected. Sell it for more than what those similar products cost. Use Marketing to seduce lemmings and make it popular (It's an Apple!). Add accessories that must be purchased to make it work.
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Go back and reread how these work. Go to Apples page and get the details. You missed the part about how an Airtag location is reported by any passing iPhone. There are a billion iPhones wandering around the planet. Any of them is capable of relaying a general location of your lost Airtag until you get close enough for Bluetooth to take over.
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