If they were worried about being tracked, they wouldn't have an Android phone....
Apple today released a new "Tracker Detect" app on the Google Play Store, with the app designed to allow Android users to locate AirTags that might be nearby.
According to the app's description, Tracker Detect looks for item trackers that are separated from their owner and that are compatible with the Find My Network, so it will locate AirTags and other Find My-enabled devices like the Chipolo Bluetooth item tracker.
Apple says that Android users can scan to find a nearby AirTag if they think that someone is using an AirTag or another device to track their location. The app is designed to alleviate fears from experts worried that AirTags can be used maliciously to track the location of individuals.
For iPhone users, Apple previously introduced several safety features, including an alert that will let an iPhone user know if an AirTag that does not belong to them is following them. There was no such protection for Android users prior to the introduction of the Tracker Detect app, which Apple said it was working on back in June.
An Apple Support document on the feature says that if the app detects an AirTag or Find My-compatible item tracker nearby for at least 10 minutes, a sound can be used to help locate it. Conducting a scan will reveal any nearby AirTags, and after offering up a tool to play a sound to locate the AirTag, Apple will offer information on how to disable it by removing the battery.
Article Link: Apple Releases 'Tracker Detect' App to Prevent Android Users From Being Tracked by AirTags
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Apple Releases 'Tracker Detect' App to Prevent Android Users From Being Tracked by AirTags
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Well... The AirTag has to be separated from its owner. So unless you are far away from your keys anyway, it's not possible.
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It was always probably much easier for a thief to physically look for any AirTag attached to a stolen item and then remove/destroy it anyway. This app doesn't really change a whole lot for stolen items, unless the AirTag was so unbelievably hidden that a physical search was impossible. I can't imagine any realistic scenario where that was the case.
AirTags are not very useful for tracking stolen items in the first place.
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As Apple and some comments here have said it’s for finding lost items - not stolen items.
If you leave a bag somewhere under a table say anyone with an iPhone passing by will pinpoint it for you.
If it’s stolen then you have to hope they have a Android and don’t know about this new app.
I get it though. Stalkers could slip this tracker in their bag so this is apples way of avoiding that.
No, they're looking out for stalking victims...
They couldn't just release a FindMy app for Android. God forbid they sell these products to people who use both platforms.
AirTags, nerfed again. I see this product going as well as the original HomePod: discontinued.
The difference is that the HomePod was, and still is, great.
The difference is that the HomePod was, and still is, great.
They aren't intended to track stolen items. Apple has said this multiple times.
The stated purpose by Apple is that AirTags ever locating lost items: for example, you lost your keys in the sofa cushions, or your eyeglass case underneath your car seat, or you left your luggage somewhere. They have explicitly stated that AirTags are not for tracking stolen items. They may be useful in some circumstances for that purpose, but Apple has not designed them nor sold them as such a product.
Cool story, that's not what people are buying them for. Saying it's not something isn't the same thing as selling something that does that, and then deciding to nerf it later.
I mean to their credit I don’t think it was their fault…. It was all the crybabies who complained and forced them to update it.
It's almost like people are complaining that a product isn't optimized for a use case that was never intended or marketed. The danger of a person being stalked outweighs the risk of losing an item to theft. In the former case, a person's safety -- or possibly even life -- is at stake; in the latter, you're out the cost of the item that was stolen, which you can get reimbursed for by having insurance if the item is sufficiently valuable enough to warrant it.
This is exactly it. It's amazing that this still doesn't get through.
"I don't care if someone can use an AirTag to stalk my kids, I need to find the jerk who stole my wallet!"
You can even ping them? And it works not only for AirTags that are known to move with you but all AirTags around you? Looks like a great way to harass Apple users in apartment buildings.
Apple creating a whole mess of problems and completely ruining an extraordinary product all in the name of ‘fixing’ a non-problem.
Airtags where the perfection of what Tile should have been and were the best antitheft device ever. Now they are worse than useless thanks to ignorant hysteria. One has to wonder if this anti tracking paranoia is really just bending over for people who make money off of theft.
Airtags where the perfection of what Tile should have been and were the best antitheft device ever. Now they are worse than useless thanks to ignorant hysteria. One has to wonder if this anti tracking paranoia is really just bending over for people who make money off of theft.
I feel like AirTags are becoming more and more useless.
And for the 1,000,000th time, that’s an ignorant argument. as originally designed, they are the ideal anti theft device regardless of some weasel disclaimer words tacked on by legal nerds. The world is full of invaluable inventions that only became so after being used in ways other than originally intended.
There are already so many ways to easily track someone that AirTag did nothing consequential to add to the situation. But they were biggest step in preventing theft in a long time.
This “not intended for it” argument is so tiresome and irrelevant that I can’t see any other explanation except that folks pushing actually like the ability to steel other people’s stuff and are annoyed that a countermeasure as effective as Airtags exists.
The solution is to not put the AirTags on something that is very valuable and not nearby. AirTags are for things like keys, remotes, wallet, etc. - things that are small, not always on your person and can get misplaced easily. Apple never claimed AirTags was for tracking stolen items. That being said, I do use it for my dog and it works fine for that.
Tiles, Trackr, all the other brands of Bluetooth tags. Or an iPod touch connected to the FindMy network. Or an old iPhone. Or if you want to spend more money, the many flavors of GPS tracking tags. There have been so many ways of surreptitiously tracking somebody for so many years that AirTags doesn’t meaningfully add to the problem at all.