Woman accused of tracking boyfriend with Apple AirTag, killing him with car (opens in new tab)

To be honest, I was always on the “AirTags are harmless” side until reading your perspective. You are probably right that making the UX so simple and coming from a trusted brand will enable many more people to misuse the technology.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to the question: is this harmful enough that we should regulate it? Answering that involves weighing the benefits against the harms.

AirTags have plenty of legitimate uses and benefits. Stories such as this article show a very real downside to the technology, but isolated stories are not a great way to make an evaluation. Doom, gloom and death will always make a more compelling story than a million people saving 5 minutes finding their keys.

I wouldn’t call Samsung a no-name seller, and they introduced smart tags a few months before Apple (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_SmartTag, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirTag)

Also, I think Apple thought harder about this kind of problem than Samsung. They mad their tags beep every now and then because of that.

It doesn’t seem to be enough, though. I don’t see an easy way out of this. They could put a human in the loop when a user asks for a given AirTag too frequently, but that may not be enough, and would make some users unhappy because of the added friction.

It's not just accessibility but Apple's enormous network that make the difference. When you use a "standard" tracking device, it is often quite bulky as it has to contain a GSM transceiver and the battery able to power it. Airtags, on the other hand, just use Bluetooth connecting to Find My network. That's an enormous difference. You can't buy such a device from Aliexpress.

I agree with everything up until “A serious crime suddenly becomes a hip experience.” I think that’s taking it a bit too far (and demonizing Apple a bit).

These aren’t GPS trackers though- GPS trackers are expensive, use a considerable amount of power, and require subscription fees to a service provider.

An AirTag is a dumb BLE chip that screams occasionally, and piggybacks off everyone’s iPhones which already have both GPS and cell subscriptions.

Apple does notify you of Air tags near you that aren’t yours.

It is, basically, a simple BLE scanner which remembers tracker IDs and alerts user if some are sticking around for too long. sigh I wish there was a rel "radar" app which could tell the signal source direction! Theoretically, this should be possible since all modern devices have multiple (MIMO) antennas.

Reminds me of the argument that the problem is mass shooters are crazy, not that you can legally buy AR-15s so easily.

"AirTags don't kill people. People kill people!"

agreed, "let's ban kitchen knives and cars"

It’s harder to use AirTags for this than other existing trackers. The tag will eventually start beeping if it’s traveling away from the owner. If you have an iPhone, you’ll get notified that a random AirTag is traveling with you.

Don't users have to opt in to Find Friends?

There also feels like a huge difference between your personal device tracking you and that same device tracking anyone who happens to walk by. The dystopian aspect of AirTags is how they repurpose existing Apple devices to create a surveillance network.

I’m not inclined to do the legwork to prove it, but I’d be shocked if there weren’t stories exactly like this in the first couple years after Find Friends rolled out.

It was certainly a concern that people had, and modern news is kinda built to validate concern whenever it can.