it's almost like Apple told people to NOT use it for their dogs, kinda crazy eh

That's why it's called a Dog Tag.

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I haven't had an Apple phone since the 3G way back in 2009, so my understanding is well out of date.

Can you not "link" two accounts together to show both are related/together/married/etc. for stuff like this?

I'd hate to be walking around my own house, and be notified I'm stalked by my wife's purse.

The account linking would be the solution but it doesn't exist yet.

>Plus the article says it's registered to the author's partner so please lend me an arm, I gotta facepalm.

that's the root of the issue here. There should be a way to share AirTags with family.

Still brainstorming, another idea I'm thinking through is telling the app said tracker is permitted. How is a good question. Either...

A. I would hold the tracker in question, hit the button on the tracker when the screen prompts, and permits it to be near you. That way the user can't ignore all of them, and not be aware of the tracking, and the user knows exactly where the tracker is physically.

B. I could permit the tracker, but I have the enter the tracker owner's ID (email address or something). Again, allows the user to permit the tracker, and there's still no question that the user knows of the tracker, and who it belongs to.

They are correct. The dog is stalking you... It's a dog

You too? It’s annoying but I get it has to be adjusted.

Airtags aren't pet trackers.

Buy a Fi collar. We have one. Pet trackers are a totally different product category.

This is like a complaining because the off-road capabilities for your Toyota Camry are sub-par. It's like complaining about the 0-60 or cornering performance of your trail-rated jeep.

Protip: Using products for things they aren't meant for can yield poor results.

We have a GPS tracker, but also have an AirTag on his collar now. The GPS is fine for general location, but when our dog got out in our neighborhood at night, black dog, I would have liked a little finer tracking, which I hope the AirTag will provide if it happens again.

AirTags can't be used for stalking

or

AirTags can be shared with other people

Pick one.

Sharing AirTags creates a new situation where a woman could be forcibly stalked by their spouse that controls the Apple ID. You're basically creating an entirely new class of stalking, not to solve a problem, but to add a feature.

How is that different from your partner keys? Do you get alerted every time you drive together to Costco?

Pretty sure you get the option after dismissing the prompt a handful of times to no longer get notifications for that specific object.

We have two AirTags on our dog, and while we had that prompt at first that is no longer the case.

It still functions just fine for such use, but if you live in a household with multiple iPhones, it can be annoying when you’re traveling alone with the pet.

If the device the AirTag is associated to is with you when you travel, it’s not an issue.

Hopefully associating AirTags to iCloud family is high on their list. There’s a lot of other cases where this is an issue (ex: using it on a vehicle fob/keychain that’s shared)

Domestic violence situations come to mind. Carry this tracker or I'll beat the shit out of you.

edit: Domestic violence is brought up in the article.

I had a Fi collar. I replaced it with an AirTag because I found the AirTag to be better in almost all cases.

Battery lasts for better part of a year. There’s no subscription fee. Range is better (this surprised me; my dog goes to a daycare where the fi collar had no cell coverage, but with the AirTag, I see his location reported there on a regular interval)

There are now also a number of “Find My” enabled collars which are basically the exact same thing as an AirTag. The only thing you don’t get is the precision finding when you’re nearby (which to be honest, is pointless for pets).

I have a couple dogs 1 and 2 years old. If I stand around my place looking confused, dogs will do the same. Need to poop? Dogs need to be there as witnesses. Sitting on couch? Dogs need to be on either side of you. In kitchen? Dogs watch from edge. Have to leave? Dogs stare sadly out of window knowing full well they would ride or die with you lol

> It's not supposed to be used as a pet tracker.

There's no issue with using it as a pet tracker. Its not Ideal for it, as the location updates aren't as fast as needed; we have a Fi tracker that notifies us when the dog goes outside "home", it can be put into lost dog mode and updates once a minute or faster (at a cost of battery life). But visiting an in-law our dog escaped the backyard. Neighbor found it and brought them inside for safety. Would have worked great in that case.

There's an option right in the screenshot "Don't notify me about this AirTag", I've never used it but I assume that does exactly what they want? don't warn me again about this particular tag for a while.

Still I agree it would be great to "share" airtags with other family members or even outsiders

> You're basically creating an entirely new class of stalking, not to solve a problem, but to add a feature.

This is true, is there not some way to compromise? Like perhaps every once in a while, while X feet from the other partner's Apple-thingies the user gets prompted to make sure they want to allow them to track them still?

I mean, technically…

For everyone shouting about it not being a pet tracker, fine. I’ve give a few other use cases:

I have one in my GoPro bag. My wife took the GoPro for a weekend, so she got notified.

I have one on my keychain, and let my daughter use the car. Same result.

Finally, I have one in my laptop bag, and left it in my wife’s car.

In all of these cases, I want the AirTag to be shared with my family. I want them to be able to track those items as well as me, because they might need to locate them when I’m not around.

Since we are all part of the same Apple family, we already share our phone, watch, and Mac locations. Why not AirTags?

No, you can’t. My wife and I share our locations with Find My Friends, so it’s not like we don’t know where each other are anyway. And yet if I grab her keys off the counter to run to store, my phone gripes about it. I really wish my phone would:

• Let me to add a specific device to an “allow list”, like “don’t warn me about this device again because I don’t care if my wife’s car key knows where I am”.
• Warn me about trackers not registered to someone I’m already sharing my location with. I don’t care if my wife tracks me. She already is anyway, and vice versa, and it’s consensual.

Air Tag hardware is genuinely great, but it’s so limited by the risk that someone might misuse it that Apple made it hard to use correctly.

And no many times I hear the tired party line that “it’s only meant for misplaced personal items”, they’re perfect for other things like tracking stolen bicycles — or pets. I roll my eyes when people are shocked, shocked!, that anyone’s surprised when someone hangs one on their dog’s collar. “It’s not meant to track your pet, even though it’s almost like someone custom designed it to be absolutely perfect for that use!”

Yeah I keep one on my dog and it was super helpful when she got out to explore.

It isn’t perfect but since I’m in a city it gives semi up to date info on the location which allowed me to find her much quicker

The problem becomes people using it to stalk as mentioned.

Assuming the daycare has wi-fi that would explained the improved "coverage" from employees' phones being connected to it.

Because you could be using it to track an estranged family member. iOS should be giving you the option when it notifies you to ignore it for a while.

I have the same issue. It shouldn’t be hard for Find My to note that users I’m already sharing my location with don’t gain any information from seeing my AirTags.

Or more phones with multiple carriers and better reception.

This is a nothingburger. She either needs to register the AirTag on her account or merge her account with her partner’s.

Who cares? The damn thing tells you the location of something for $29. Tell me how spending $100+ on a Fi collar with some monthly data plan isn't overkill? Same shit, different design and price.

So?

The partner could tell they opted out when the tag stops moving. This comes down to risk/reward, lots of risk for Apple on anything related to privacy (stalking), but minor rewards (you can stalk your family pet).

I knew that fucker was stalking me, I fucking knew it.

Right, an air tag that’s shared with family increases transparency. The AirTag can still function as it’s meant to, but wouldn’t alert when my wife takes our dog to the park without me. It would be useless for stalking my wife because she would be able to see the AirTag and its location in her account too. As for handling breakups, Apple has a great privacy checkup tool that lets you completely separate your shared data with someone instantly.

The solution here is shared AirTags. No added risk, fewer false positives which in turn make people safer because they’re more likely to trust the alerts they get.

of course it would require opt-in from your family and opt out available at any time. then the AirTag should default to functioning like an unshared AirTag. that doesn't seem like it would be too hard for apple to do.

Hey, better safe than sorry.

Considering I don't have any trackers, and I'm going off what Apple advertises, lists in their online information, and common issues people discuss on Reddit (which in itself is questionable to include, lol)...

The only different in this case is the owner, in this case my wifi, is within the same vicinity. My concern is when she's out, say at work when I'm not, and some of her tagged items are sitting at home when I am.

Let's say "Home" is flagged and the alerts don't come up. As mentioned, traveling. Let's say she left a tagged container/item in the car, and I take the car, it'd alert me. That's fine. Let me flag it as to be ignored (different ways as discussed by others and myself here). Or as one other mentioned, let's say I take my wife's keys to take the car, it'd be nagging me too.

Lol. Although I guess more specifically one could say the author's partner is "stalking" them via the dog. Exhibit A of how AirTags are not intended to be used.

I think this is the easiest fix. It’d be great if there was a way to share the AirTag with family, but at very least don’t alert when I can already see that person’s location because of their phone or watch.

It does. I have my wife in my family and I can see her and her devices on “Find My”…. But I cannot leave our dog AirTag as “family”.

Not allowing it to be shared doesn’t fix that tho. You can still stalk someone, it’ll just continuously notify them.

Now check the cat. Is she ignoring you again?

> AirTags aren’t pet trackers

They’re literally perfect for pet tracking.

> buy a fi collar

They cost 5x as much, don’t use the Find My network, need to be charged monthly, and requires you to sign up for yet another app.

> this is like complaining that the off-road capabilities of your Toyota Camry are sub-par.

It’s actually more like complaining that the off-road capabilities of your Range Rover are sub-par. They certainly can do it, they’re more than capable, but that’s not really their purpose.

So give you an option to let you choose which family members it should be shared to, and the ability to remove one should you need to.

An intern could do this easily enough.

Why is an estranged family member part of my Apple Family then? They could remove themselves if they want to. Also, even without airtags, if they’re in the family, their devices can be tracked if they allow it. These are all options that can be disabled by the user. Ideally, if they’re part of the family, they can see all of the AirTags that are currently attached to the family.

You realize it's likely attached to a harness, or a leash, which in fact is an object?

If OP has implanted the air tag directly into the dog we have other problems.

Why would this estranged family member still allow me to see their phone, watch, Mac, and AirPods locations, but not AirTag?

Depends on how fast and the circumstances of their departure.

It gives you the options to stop reporting, or stop bugging you about it. What more do you want?

Either they’ve removed themselves from the family, which means all tracking would stop, or they’re still part of the family and tracking is enabled.

I don’t see why AirTags are treated differently, and I’m seriously trying to understand.

Standalone GPS + standalone cellular (AT&T) on the Fi collar is absolutely not in any way the "same shit" as an Airtag.

And "overkill?"

OK.

But the thing is... I like my pets.

No, not all departures are organized or amicable.

AirTags can be placed on you without your knowledge. That’s why.

It’s a very simple solution. When it notifies you, tell it it’s ok, and it will stop notifying you.

Yes... Better things cost more.

Standalone GPS + standalone cellular (AT&T) on the Fi collar is absolutely not in any way equal to an Airtag.

The fact that it works when nowhere near another iPhone isn’t useful to me and many other pet owners. It’s just yet another unnecessary subscription that has to be paid for.

That’s not better. That’s worse. It does everything an AirTag would do for me, while costing literally infinitely more. My dog doesn’t need a cell phone. It needs an AirTag.

You don’t seem to be getting what I’m saying.

Let’s say my daughter leaves suddenly and no longer wishes contact. She forgets to remove herself from my family. I’m still able to track her phone, watch, and laptop. What does the extra AirTag give me that I don’t already have in terms of tracking her without her permission?

In terms of notifying her, if she did as you said, she wouldn’t even be aware of the AirTag I had already placed on her because she silenced it long ago. It won’t even show up on her list.

However, if apple did as I’m suggesting, she would also be able to track the AirTag I placed on her, since she is still part of the family and has access to the AirTag instead of just notifications disabled. That seems like a better solution, no?

They do that. It means they want food and/or pets. If you’re particularly lucky, it means they want belly rubs.

If I have an indoor cat that sleeps 18 hours a day and has never gone outside, what difference will a Fi collar have, besides being bulkier and costing more money? The 1000% markup of paying for Fi's tech is not worth the 0.01% chance she slips outside.

It is overkill, too, because I'd now be using LTE instead of UWB to find her in the house.

Think of the statistics when people are presented with:

a) Track your pet in your house for $29
b) Track your pet anywhere for $200+ w/ subscription
c) Don't track your pet

If you have multiple pets, option B may be impossible for your budget! Option A is probably the use-case for 80% of pet owners (not that Fi doesn't have its use cases).

And no- I'd say those choosing option A also like their pets just as much as you do.

> It's not supposed to be used as a pet tracker.

I'm not affiliated with them in any way, but if you are looking for a pet tracker, I'm very happy with Whistle. I've been using it for years and it has helped me find her on two different occasions when my dog got out.

A proactive solution instead of a reactive one. It should just be in your list of airtags if it's owned by an approved family member.

So I just slip in a tag on the family member I want to stalk, and go in approve it and say it’s ok before they are wiser?

"You're holding it wrong." - Apple

She knows she has the other devices. She doesn’t know of the tag you slipped in.

I don’t believe the approval is permanent, but you’d have to check with Apple on that.

So she remembers I can track her phone using family, but forgets to remove herself from the family or that AirTags exist?

Realistically if the family member has not already permanently shared their location with you, they will not add you to their approved AirTags user list.

You can’t register AirTags on multiple accounts or share them with family. That is exactly the missing feature.

I have a dog that always falls asleep with me on the bed then ends up on the floor by the time I wake up. Every time. Then my other one always sleeps in the room on the dog bed we originally bought for the other dog ... lol. Then the other dog bed lies empty. I have contemplated removing it but I'm afraid of what may happen if I do

No. You can’t do that. Must farm karma and finish new dramatic article by deadline.

I was unaware that the entire world revolved around you.

I'll make a note for future reference.

Strawman fallacy.

Then 1 of 2 things needs to happen. He needs to de-register it from his account, and she needs to register it, or they need to get a new fucking AirTag.

That would just change the problem from one person to the other. Fundamentally AirTags are a broken experience for any situation that involves two or more humans.

You mean different people have different needs? Wtf?

People who need things that are different from you are stupid, amiright?

[/s]

Also, you don't even know what you are talking about.

Fi collars are free... You pay for the subscription. That's it. It's not $200 plus a subscription.

It's just a subscription.

Where did you even get those prices???

https://shop.tryfi.com/products/smart-collar-v3?collarType=standard&color=yellow&size=large

The opinions of the ignorant can always be safely disregarded.

No, it’s not, if they’re on a family account.

Have you tried that? AirTags are the one thing not shareable via family.

From the fucking article:

> My partner and I could always open a Family Sharing iCloud, or a joint account that connects our devices. If we did that, I would unlock an option to cancel notifications for Rosie’s AirTag. We currently have separate accounts, though, and aren’t interested in fully merging our clouds.

Lmaoooo why are all of your comments so passive-aggressive? Stop taking this shit so personally; understand that making sly insults in your wording is winning nobody over and only highlights your insecurity. I don't need to attack anyone's character to have confidence in a discussion. I don't care if I am right or wrong here. I'm just pointing out an AirTag's use case that you previously wouldn't admit there was a justification for.

That only solves half of the problem: No matter what they do exactly one account can track Rosie.

Though I’m confused why they are hesitant to turn on family sharing. As far as I can tell it’s all upside.

I live out in the country and have multiple people taking care of our pet, Fi has worked perfectly not only when someone is home, but telling me who is taking her out of the house and to where. So far Fi tracks my dog better than Apple does my keys.

Also just like buying an Apple Watch, Fi will track movement and sleep which is perfect for making sure our pup gets enough exercise.

Technically correct, the best type of correct.

My son’s AirPods set off that notification. I’ve always selected to not be notified about it indefinitely and I still get the alerts

The article has a screenshot that literally shows it saying "do not notify me about this airtag" lol.

The whole thing is a stupid nothing article.

That only disables the notifications for 24 hours — you cannot permanently ignore warnings for an AirTag not registered to your ID

I heard the AirTag defaults to your ifone after a few days of dead battery

Which wouldn't be an issue with family sharing already. I mean, my wife and I have family sharing set up with our locations in Find My. We can always see where each others' devices are.

Apple does give you the option to not have a specific AirTag notify you though.

AirTags only notify you if an AirTag that isn't yours is following you without the owner nearby. So riding together it wouldn't notify that it's following.

That's just Apple artificially defining how people should use a product that's otherwise self-evidently applicable to a broad domain of use-cases.

Apple can say "We don't want people using AirTags for anti-theft or pet tracking," but people do and will continue to, because they're perfect (but for the annoying notifications that bother legitimate users and alert thieves) for anti-theft and that sort of stuff.

You would still have to check the app ever now and then to see if your partner is stalking you, because it would not pro-actively trigger an alert right it does right now. I understand Apple, that this not as easy of a choice as it seams. Also probably hard to get if you’re not thinking in these scenarios or if you’re not affected by domestic abuse.

That’s not really helped or hurt with shared tags. If my wife already shares her location with me, there is no added risk to her if our dog’s location is also shared.

“Gonna write an article complaining about my edge-case situation and the step I refuse to take to resolve the issue voluntarily.” Wow. First world problems indeed.

I love how everyone focuses on apple trackors when there are 100s of different ones you can buy and use.

As I said, this is not as easy. A family account doesn’t force you to share your device location - you can just have it off and still be in the family account.

How does adding an AirTag work? Does it send a motivation to every family member that it was added? Does your wife say it’s for the dog, you agree to adding it, and suddenly it’s in your car stalking where you are driving while the dog is at home and there is no notification at all it’s with you?

I have to do this every few days for one

It only does it for a day, so it will start notifying 24 hours later

I have mine on my cat - she is definitely stalking me. Even if she’s hiding somewhere she’s still well aware of where I am

Well thats way too short a time.

It wouldn’t automatically be shared with her. It’s all opt in. I would send an invite and she could accept it. Either of us could leave at any time. Once or twice a year my phone gives me a privacy review notification where it walks me through the data I’m sharing with apps and others, allowing me to change it.

If my wife decides to put the dog AirTag in my car, she could, but I could also check that any time I wanted. If I didn’t want her to see my location, I would check which devices are sharing location and where they are. Since it’s opt in and Apple has those periodic privacy reviews, I think the level of risk is low.

The current approach of spamming AirTag notifications when someone who lives with other iPhone users uses them creates a pattern where we learn to ignore them, which is a far bigger risk.

The only real alternative is to not have the technology exist at all. That’s not going to happen. I’d rather it be done by a responsible company like apple than someone who doesn’t take these precautions.

In other news: Apple's anti-stalking feature works as designed. Air tag not registered to you phone? Well then duh.

K.

Research first, then post next time.

That's not how that works.

There are pet symbols when you are assigning the AirTag though?

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Only flaw with that logic is the author is fully aware the dog is being tracked, thus it cannot be violating their privacy.

2 dogs, both “air tagged”… never had any issues. The only notifications I get is when I leave dogs in a car while doing some shopping (when I leave my dogs in the car, my wife stays with them and car is always “climate controlled”)… and that notifications correctly remind me that I left my two dogs behind.

Only for a day.

Have you been hounded?

You can only suppress it for 24 hours. It drives me mad as every time I have my son in the car it tells Me someone is tracking me.

I believe if they are part of your family sharing plan you can disable it but my phone is a work phone so I can’t create a family sharing plan and add them. It’s super annoying because you cannot dismiss the alert unless you click on it and let it open the app and show you the map.

Doesn’t help me, my phone is a work phone so I cannot invite my kids to family sharing. Every time I travel in the car with them and their AirPods my phone tells me someone is stalking me.

We have one on our dog as a precaution and because we got a 4 pack and it was an extra. So why not. It is annoying thought that even though my wife and I are in the “family” I can’t share tags with her. We swap cars all the time and we have air tags on the keys. Both registered under my account but items we both use regularly and I’m sure many others out there do a similar set up. I wish they just added the convenience of having tags be shared with family already.

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I don’t think you’ve ever used an Apple family account with shared devices if you’re saying this. It’s not possible. It’s annoying as hell too when my wife think her car keys are stalking her because we share vehicles

I’m not following. Does your son have an AirTag on him that isn’t his? If it’s his and tied to his Apple ID it shouldn’t notify you at all as long as he’s in the vicinity.

If it’s not his then that’s like the exact thing Apple says you cannot use them for.

Not related to AirTags actually but the find my network also alerts you to AirPods that are travelling with you but aren’t registered to you or your family sharing plan. So whenever they get in the car with their AirPods I get the same stupid alerts, every damn time.

Family Sharing is free. You aren’t required to get iCloud+ or any family plans to use it.

> There should be a way to share AirTags with family.

Yes, but there is more to it than just turning off alarm for all family AirTags. The way of sharing must take into account that stalking can also come from abusive people in the relationship.

Should every AirTag gets pre-approved from each member of the family? Can the owner just abuse that AirTag even it was told to the family that it was for their keys, for example?

It doesn't seem that complicated to me. no pre-approvals, each AirTag share should require opt-in for each family member, and allow opt-out any time. I don't see how that could be abused.

The problem is that the non-owner’s phone literally doesn’t know it’s the same AirTag after 24hrs.

The AirTag’s ID changes to prevent Bluetooth scanners to know who owns the AirTag across days, so for example a supermarket chain cannot rig up scanners to track unique visitors with AirTags across locations.

But because of that, there is no real way to tell the phone to ignore one specific AirTag forever, unless somehow it’s no more ID based.

Edit: typos and clarity

Hypothetical: Bob ask Alice if he can share the AirTag for his keychain. Alice agrees and approves. Bob drops that AirTag into Alice’s bag one day.

The problem is that the AirTag is not bolted on the item that are legitimately to be tracked.

Some scheme that will occasionally inform users on an interval without the phone giving red alarm every time might be necessary. It’s not as simple as approve and disapprove.

It comes back every day

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Got a 2 year old staff - sometimes, depending on what he gets to eat during the day, he has to go for a poop around midnight, so I get up, go downstairs and let him out into the garden where he will do his business, while I watch, so I can defuse the landmine in the morning. What he always does after this, is run(!) inside, sprint up the stairs and jump back into bed, so he can continue sleeping. Today I decided I might go for a midnight sandwich after I saw him going for the stairs. I was happy preparing the snack, turned around and guess who was staring at me, BukkabangSanchez, the Betrayer? I even feel guilty now!

Your dog is stalking you! It’s what they do.

There's an easy solution to this. Unpair it from her partners device and pair it to her device. I did this with my wife as she was constantly receiving alerts that she might be tracked. I never receive those alerts. It's almost as if Apple knows the gender of the owner and if it tracks a woman being tagged they see those alerts more often than men. We have 2 dogs, 2 trackers both paired to her phone not one tracking alert on my phone since registering.

We track our cars, keys and equipment with AirTags. People who have iPhones are weirded out when they get these messages. Like if you are hanging out with someone and they get the message. Or if you go meet someone for business or espionage meetups with Langley, they particularly don't like that.

Not sure how this can be fixed though without it being abused.

he explains. The tag on his dog is registered to his partners icloud account. Additionally they do not have family sharing enabled.

The stalker alert is specifically 'i keep seeing an airtag that is not yours that follows you around'.

Many people live with others (The rent is too damn high), and maybe borrow each other's things including bikes and cars. Many of these bikes are cars may have hidden away in them. This will cause stalker alerts.

The best solution for this would be a feature that allows a user to 'accept the stalking tag as friendly' for some length of time. maybe with an occasional reminder.

I left one in my wife’s car for over a month. It alerted her every day and she never said a word. I finally remembered it when I needed it for something else and I asked if it was in her car.

the world will never know…

It’s why we returned them in the end. I really wanted to use them for the dogs, but when they are limited to one person, it makes them moot.

If the dogs got out when I wasn’t home but my brother is, then he can track the beasts down

Thx. That makes more sense.

Why not have the dog on your own account listed as dog. Your own devices don’t stalk you.

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Why do you have two on one dog?

Why are they using an AirTag to track something as mobile as a dog? What happens when the dog runs 6 blocks down the street into the neighbors backyard? Or into the woods? Buy the right tool for the job.

Also, if they wanna get rid of the alert, they should make their apple id’s part of a family. Can’t believe a tech blogger doesn’t know how the tech works.

Or it’s apple trying to walk an extremely tight line of something with so much potential for abuse and adding functionality. They’re fucked either way. Shit, this dude is getting alerts about his dog and it’s “news” on a major website FFS. Imagine if the add the family feature and it’s abuse ends up used for stalking. Which as others have pointed out would be very simple.

It’s just not as simple as “let people do what they want”.

Your wife agrees to the bag but you want to track her everywhere. So once she adds that tag you hide it in her purse. For some relationships that could lead to terrible things.

It’s painfully simple to abuse. How much risk and exposure does apple take to prevent people from getting a notification every 24 hours? I’m sure they have meetings and discussions about it. There’s certainly nothing altruistic. If they feel like they’ll make enough money from adding a family feature to cover the risk of its predictable and inevitable abuse then they will. They’ll have their lawyers lined up for the first lawsuit when a jealous spouse murders their partner etc.

You have to set up a Apple ID family share.

Gotta get the clicks, apple gets the clicks.

Same thing happens when I brush past my jacket that has my keys in it. I get all these nfc notifications

This isn’t about avoiding the notice, it’s about letting a family share an AirTag for mutually owned items. Remote controls, keys, cameras, luggage, etc.

Make it an opt-in invite. I can choose to share a tag with my family & they have to accept or they don’t get to see it but get notified if it moves with them.

These are trivial problems to solve.

No other GPS or bluetooth tracker does it, because it's not an in-scope problem for item trackers. Tiles, dog trackers, smart watches, Android phones, and hundreds of GPS tracker products never had any issue with this because no one ever cared. Apple made it into a problem. Kind of like their iCloud photos scanning feature—nobody asked for it, but Apple decided to make it an issue, and by virtue of their declaring it a huge problem, it suddenly was one for a vocal minority.

People who wanna do dumb criminal stuff can use any number of cheap, effective tools (any of the non-Apple products listed above will do), and it's their and law enforcement's problem.

But people don't like perfectly useful products being artificially handicapped for a truly marginal amount of additional hypothetical safety. People are going to continue to put AirTags and Tiles on their airport luggage and on their bikes and cars, because they want to be able to track their stuff down when it gets stolen.

Like every 24 hours? As it already does. How few notifications are some people getting on their phone that 1 every 24 hours is some burden. This is a first world problem to the Nth degree. According to google the average person gets 46 a day.

Apple decided everything they do is under much more scrutiny than most other manufacturers, this ridiculous article on a major news outlet is a perfect example. They did this for some simple reasons, to avoid lawsuits and regulation or more simply put $$$. “We’ll Timmy did it and he didn’t get into trouble” isn’t exactly a great argument in court.

Maybe those other manufacturers should have the same functionality but they can’t. Apple can, and in the case of litigation they’re covering their ass.

How does this approach avoid just the one situation I thought of? Apple likes $$$ a lot. The moment they think they can avoid litigation and regulation they’ll add more features to sell more things.

For now it’s probably safe to assume the lawyers, product managers and developers at the worlds largest and most successful tech company have considered all of these things, they’re learning nothing new from an article about a dudes dog or people in the Reddit comments.

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Two owners, find my doesn’t allow sharing. Also ends up being a backup.

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No like a month. It’s not annoying once, it’s annoying when it’s every damn day with no recourse.

It works perfectly well as a pet tracker for people who live alone and don't share the pet. The problem here is that it doesn't implement sharing correctly, not that dogs are somehow special.

there’s no other point a tracker. come on apple.

Right. I get notified when I go on walks with my wife. Apple gets scared that my wife’s keys are following me!

It's just an ad for airtags

Sounds like the author just never actually set it up to be a device that they owned…?

Omg, plz stfu... change your settings... click bait

Yup. And if I am an evil partner, I can get my target partner’s phone and accept the invitation.

I’d love shared AirTags because I’m not evil. I also totally understand why it is the way it is.

I believe that was disabled for “safety”.

Get a real GPS. Depending on AirTags in parks and open spaces is risky.

Dog has a smug ass look on its mug… probably been stalking you longer than you realized

> Either of us could leave at any time.

But not cleanly. The problem with this is in the domestic violence or stalking situation is that it becomes known to the other person that the AirTag has stopped sharing. (It doesn't matter if it happens through notification or the AirTag disappears from the other person's screen.)

Until the person stops sharing their AirTag the location is shared with the other person and so is something of a route to some point where the AirTag sharing is then turned off.

One way around this is to allow a scramble AirTag location, whereby the person can press a button and the AirTag location is reported as somewhere random and different.

>The only real alternative is to not have the technology exist at all. That’s not going to happen.

I just watched a company attempt to create a fictional $1 million contractural fine for misuse of their product. They may not be able to make this one work out.

> Today I decided I might go for a midnight sandwich after I saw him going for the stairs. I was happy preparing the snack, turned around and guess who was staring at me, BukkabangSanchez, the Betrayer?

Haha, busted. Did you share?

Weird. I’ve never had an issue with being notified about AirPods that aren’t mine. And I have buddies in my car with their AirPods all the time.

I do get the “AirPods left behind” notification though when I leave them at home even though I have it set up as an exempted place.

> and allow opt-out any time

The problem with this is in the domestic violence or stalking situation is that it becomes known to the other person that the AirTag has stopped sharing. (It doesn't matter if it happens through notification or the AirTag disappears from the other person's screen.)

Until the person stops sharing their AirTag the location is shared with the other person and so leads to some point where the AirTag sharing is then turned off.

One way around this is to allow a scramble AirTag location, whereby the person can press a button and the AirTag location is reported as somewhere random and different.

My dog is stalking me.