After a number of stories have highlighted how AirTags are being used for stalking purposes, Apple has today updated its polyvore.life existing “Personal Safety User Guide” with new information on what consumers should do in the event they find an unknown AirTag in their presence or hear one make a sound.
The company said it would also soon adjust how AirTags alert users when they are moved. The new alerts will play a sound when an AirTag is detected moving with a user’s iPhone, iPad or iPod touch and also let them take action to help locate the device using the precision finding tools, if available.
This marks the first time Apple has added such proactive alerts to its Find My network accessories. Other competitors, including Tile, haven’t yet followed suit.
With these proactive alerts, Apple is pushing other lost item finder manufacturers to add similar features to their products, too. Chipolo, an AirTag competitor and former Tile partner, recently launched a new product that lets people locate their missing wallets through Apple’s Find My app.
As a result of these efforts, there have been some concerns about Apple’s overall dominance of the lost-item finder market dseklmsspace.com, as well as some anti-competitive claims from some competitors. For example, Tile’s general counsel complained before Congress about the amount of resources it was putting into creating new features for its lost-item finders in order to counter Apple’s dominance.
Nevertheless, Apple has been willing to head off any anti-competitive claims by opening up its “Find My” app to third parties and partnering with a Tile competitor, the Chipolo ONE Spot, to demonstrate that it’s giving other lost-item finders on its platform equal footing. However, since Android phones have no way to find unknown AirTags on a map inside Apple’s built-in Find My app, the company has opted to release an Android app called Tracker Detect that allows non-Apple users to identify unexpected AirTags nearby.
But the app has received a bad rap from critics who say it’s impossible to use without manually scanning for AirTags in your vicinity, which may not be possible when you’re away from your phone. The app requires users to leave the app open for at least 10 minutes before it can scan for any unknown AirTags in their vicinity, and even then the app doesn’t always work.
Another criticism has been that the app doesn’t offer a way to disable an unknown AirTag, which is something Tile does on its own product. The app does offer a button to enable the feature, but that requires the user to remove the battery from the unknown AirTag and then re-install it again, which can be difficult for some people.
That’s why it’s encouraging that Apple has taken steps to address the problem by adding a dedicated AirTag support document and an 247sports.biz Android app that allows non-Apple users to easily identity unexpected AirTags near them. Those who are worried about stalkers using AirTags to stalk them can download Tracker Detect and follow the instructions in the support documentation to learn more about how the feature works, and how to locate an AirTag if it’s following them.
