One Billion iPhones Is The Biggest Asset Of Apple AirTag— But The Device Is Far From Perfect
The coin-sized tracker’s anti-stalking technology is well thought out. But the gadget can be easily misused
After conducting three successful online events back to back in 2020, Apple had mastered the art of doing virtual product launches.
With the recently concluded Spring Loaded event this year, the iPhone maker once again proved why they’re the best at storytelling and marketing.
An all-new purple body iPhone 12, a redesigned iMac, the “macification” of iPad Pro through M1 chip, an upgrade to Apple TV 4K, and a revamped Siri Remote that brought the memories of iPod click wheel were truly some promising announcements.
But it was the Apple AirTags that stood out from the rest in the event. Priced at $29 a piece(or $99 for four), the rounded coin-sized tracker is cheaper than the accessories you’d buy with it — thereby making it Apple’s most affordable gadget yet. Plus, you can personalize the trackers by engraving initials or add emojis too.
Now, from a distance, the new AirTags might not seem a particularly innovative product considering similar stuff already exists in the market(like Tile).
However, if one looks at this from a privacy or a business standpoint, Apple’s AirTags are is too big a deal to ignore.
The tech giant has over a billion devices to piggyback on for its latest tracking gadget. That’s a billion with the B and a userbase that’s miles ahead of anything its rivals could ever offer.
Yet AirTags might not have a smooth road ahead. Being an exclusive location-tracking device, Apple will have a lot of concerns to address despite the privacy-preserving approach they’ve used.
Before we look at the potential flaws and misuse of AirTags, let’s analyze what makes it the most cutting-edge tracking device of today.
Apple AirTags uses UWB and Find My network to locate items
With any tracking device, the owner always has two major concerns: what if it goes out of battery, and the fear of losing Bluetooth signals(ask any AirPod user).
While Apple does a fine job by offering a battery that lasts more than a year and is replaceable, it’s their ability to leverage the Find My network app that gives AirTags the most advanced tracking technology today.
For starters, Find My is a built-in app that lets you keep a track of Apple devices and share locations with friends.
AirTag uses this technology to bounce signals of its billion devices and track the location without depending upon WiFi. So once your tracker goes out of range with the iPhone, the global network of iPhones or iPad comes into action to help locate the item.
Simply put, any nearby iOS device that has the Find My app installed and enabled will act as a searcher to help relay back the location of your AirTag.
To ensure the location tracking is privacy preserved, Apple has ensured that communication within the find my network is end-to-end encrypted such that not even Apple knows the location data of your device.
Besides relying on its decade-old Find My network for good use, the AirTags is also powered by a UI chip.
This means one can use the ultra-wideband technology(UWB) that’s currently available in iPhone 11 and 12 for precision finding.
Precision Finding is a feature that uses an accelerometer and ARKit to give you an exact measurement of distance and direction through visual arrows, haptic feedback, and sound. It’s available in the latest update of the Find My app.
Apple AirTag’s anti-stalking feature is well thought out but can easily be misused
The fact that AirTag can also be detected from NFC-enabled Android smartphones shows that Apple has given a lot of thought to its product.
The Cupertino tech giant has designed AirTags with everybody’s privacy in mind. There are plenty of subtle features to keep stalkers at bay and secure the owner’s information.
Let’s say you’re AirTag is lost. A random stranger helps locate it back to you. Now, since stranger already knows your AirTag’s identity, they should be able to locate you in future too. Right? Wrong.
Apple has set up an infrastructure that keeps refreshing the Bluetooth identifiers periodically to eliminate the possibilities of re-targeting a specific AirTag.
What’s more, no iPhone user can find the AirTag owner’s information unless they’ve marked it as stolen and explicitly revealed their contact details.
Besides, Apple has explicitly discouraged the use of AirTags for tracking kids, people, or pets. Apple Watches could be used for those cases with AirTags meant to keep a tab on items only.
Yet, it’s easy to misuse the device. So to prevent unwanted tracking, Apple has integrated anti-stalking features to let you know if someone is watching your trails. Anytime, an unknown AirTag is recognized to be traveling with you you’d be notified shortly(unless the owner of the AirTag is nearby).
Though this does the job of limiting people from getting tracked, sadly it leaves the door open for thefts.
Consider your luggage with AirTag is stolen. If the culprit has an iOS device, the anti-stalking feature will be triggered to notify them of an unknown AirTag. This makes it pretty simple for thieves to locate and disable it.
Another frightening scenario could be when you’ve slid an AirTag onto a pet and it wanders away. If your pet is strolling down a busy street, it’s likely that most of its nearby users would be alerted about an unknown AirTag on their devices. These notifications are not only obtrusive but can also draw unnecessary suspicion. Plus, certain privacy-conscious users might feel this exposes their item's anonymity to the public.
Thirdly, AirTags will play make a sound if it’s away from its owner for three or more days. Now, this is useful for Android users to know if they’re being tracked, however, three days is actually a sufficient timeframe for stalkers to trace you. Besides, these alerts can be triggered falsely. Say, you forget your AirTag at home or inside a car and are then away on a holiday. Currently, there’s no way to stop it from beeping(maybe you can disable it, but then this opens the initial loophole of stalking people silently).
To some extent, the billion Apple devices that are the biggest strength of AirTags can also become a liability. With iPhone occupy a large share of the smartphone market, almost anyone can trace your stolen items.
In Apple defense though, they can’t really enforce anti-theft mechanisms as it’s a thing that requires law enforcement and regulations.
So, their current product design offers the best stalker-proof technology it can. A pairing lock guarantees that your AirTag cannot be paired with a new owner without prior consent.
However, AirTags are a promising accessory that’ll only expand Apple’s ecosystem
In all, AirTags are a great addition to Apple’s ecosystem. It’s proved that tracking and privacy can work together — something that might rub more salt into the wounds of Facebook as they’re fighting against Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature.
This tiny-sized accessory also gives more reasons to Android users to switch towards an iPhone. I won’t be surprised if AirTags help boost iPhone sales this year.
What’s better, Find My network is no longer constrained to individuals and families only. It’s now turning into a global peer-to-peer location tracking system that’s almost decentralized.
Find My could just be the App Store of location trackers as it allows third parties to adopt it.
However, the possibilities to abuse the anti-stalking technology are also limitless. It’s also likely that your bike with an AirTag can be stolen and you won’t be able to trace it if the thief has an iPhone.
With AirTags being Apple’s first tracking only gadget, it’ll be interesting to see how the world reacts to it as it starts rolling out to the masses on the 30th of April.
The first iteration of the product has a few flaws and it can become a nightmare if someone decides to misuse it for searching people. Besides, the coins are bulky which makes them difficult to fit in a wallet.
The tracker can also trigger falsely within a car or on an airport during baggage collection if the owner is away. But perhaps Apple could use the imperfectness of AirTags to partner up with cars and bike companies? There are rumors of an Apple Car, so one can’t rule this out.
I won’t be surprised to see Apple using AirTags to enter into the shipment and luggage business with perhaps a stalker-proof “AirBag” in the future. Or build a location-based social network?
The Spring-loaded event started with a brief talk about Apple Cards. I’d love to see a similar technology tracking used in those cards as well. Until then, AirTags are a good start.