An open standard would be fantastic. I don’t think this is quite as straightforward as something like smart home tech though.
Big data aren’t gonna wanna forego the data element like Apple’s solution is void of. And there are folks who think the anti-stalker stuff diminishes their usefulness and would rather forego those protections in favour of anti-theft.
An open standard would need everyone to agree on every aspect, because it’s the network aspect that would need to be open and shared, rather than the hardware. The find my network being open to third parties for enrolment I think is the best we’re gonna get here.
I’ve ordered a pack of four, and look forward to trying them out. I have had a few Tiles in the past, but think Apple’s use of its Find My network is a unique value proposition.
My one disappointment with Apple is their UK prices. In January 2017, they understandably increased by around 25%, in response to the devaluation of the pound following the Brexit vote. The exchange rate had fallen from 1.44 to 1.20.
The pound has now been growing stronger, and is back at 1.39, so it’s disappointing that this isn’t reflected in Apple’s UK prices. It means shopping in Europe, the US or Singapore makes a lot more sense of you happen to be going there.
Historically, the exchange rate has never mattered. It was always pound-to-dollar pricing, eg: a $200 camera in the US was £200 in the UK, which is why travelling to the US was always a big shopping experience.
But that thing called eCommerce and t’internet has brought price difference front-and-center. A lot of industries have switched to ‘rough’, in-the-ballpark, exchange rate pricing.
Apple can get away with whatever they want, they’re Apple and their products continue to sell. Plus no-one can do any transatlantic shopping trips either…
I’ll probably pick up one to play with. I could see it useful for hiding on my bike too depending on how big it is in the flesh.
It seems a little better for integration with iOS that Tile has. I used to use Tile, until I lost my keys on holidays and could just watch where they were without being able to actually retrieve them…
Thinking of trying to make a 3d-printed keyring / case for different use cases. Be interested in seeing how others use them
Tile are mad that Apple are beating them with ‘unfair competition’ when Find My is open to third parties and the features Apple offer for free, are a chargeable extra on Tile
It might be in a few cases - but I’m talking historically, like the 70’s/80’s/90’s - basically pre-internet/eCommerce days. I did a lot of travel to the US in the late 80’s and 90’s, where I would take a long list of tech stuff to buy while there. I then lived in NY for most of the 00’s so I didn’t need to bother… But it did make a huge difference to buy in dollars.
Since then, equivalents have been available online for a more standardised price. Apart from Apple and to some extent now, Google & MS too.
It has affected the industry I’m in - it was always a ‘US price’ in dollars and a GBP price for UK/EU/ROW and the 2 had no correlation at all. But in the last 10-15 years, we’ve to align them to approximate currency exchange rates because people are no longer afraid to buy from a different territory and eat the shipping costs.
To be fair, the article I just shared was about app prices rather than hardware!
I do remember buying my first iPhone in the US in November 2007, and it was only USD250 - though I had to jailbreak it to remove the AT&T contract. That equates to GBP190, though I wouldn’t have minded paying GBP250 - nor would I today!
This growth is very recent, and is far too soon for Apple to correct their pricing here. IIRC, We didn’t see a modest increase in price for quite a while after the drop. It’s never going to be an exact thing, and we still overdue a price increase prior to Brexit as our currency had been falling from 1.7 USD to 1.4 over the two years prior the referendum, and only minor changes to iPhone price reflected that.
If our currency continues to rise, and is stable in doing so, and we don’t see some sort of a discount on higher cost prices then I’ll share in your disappointment. Accounting for U.K. tax and duties, only as recently as this month would our currency have allowed Apple to sell AirTags at £89. Given the way Apple structures their pricing tiers, I doubt they’ll adjust the pricing until they could be sold at £24/£79 respectively.
Cool sounds decent so long as the signature isn’t easily identifiable as a apple tag then it should be fine there are plenty of other Bluetooth devices floating around already.
So pretty pointless then if someone finds property and just decides to swipe it.
Anarchist
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Which could happen with or without an Airtag. The tag is mainly so you can find your lost property. It’s not an anti theft device. It’s essentially Find My Phone for things that aren’t phones.
