'Tragically, in multiple instances, AirTag tracking led directly to a murder,' according to a class-action lawsuit against Apple, which was updated to add more than three dozen new plaintiffs.
Mini GPS trackers have been available for cheap (cheaper than AirTags) for years and they’re practically undetectable. No apps are going to help you there.
Apple built detection features, beeping alarms, and even apps for platforms beyond their own to aid people in not being tracked against their will. Tile didn’t. I don’t know any other trackers that have put as much effort into the problem.
Google wouldn’t implement OS-level features for competitors’ products so people suggesting Apple shouldn’t have launched until their competitors added in support are being unrealistic.
Here’s the thing about all this. Yes, tech existed before airtags. But apple made the tech incredibly accurate, incredibly cheap, and marketed the hell out of it.
They launched it with no regard to just how dangerous it would be, then waited a significant period of time for multiple reports to come forward that emphasized the dangers, then made safeguards after the fact. And finally didn’t implement those safeguards in a way that could be used by all users across the board right away. They were a step behind in protecting consumers pretty much every step of the way in this. It’s not like this didn’t take years to get to this point.
We can stop pretending they didn’t create a spy device for the masses.
They launched the airbag in April 2021 after a massive ad campaign.
They got the first reports of airtag stalking pretty much right away. And for apple users they created and implemented some protections right away. But it took them about 9 months to launch an android app and that app wasn’t even compatible with all android phones.
So finally two years later in 2023 they made it so you can detect air tags with android without the app. But only if you’re using a phone with android 6.0 or higher. I know it sounds unrealistic to us techies that people might be using phones that aren’t 6.0 or higher. But about 2.79% of android phones still run lollipop.
This also does nothing at all to protect people using flip phones or phones that don’t run android or apple software. There’s a cult following for dumb phones and people should be able to use whatever device they want for communication without just being left with no safeguards from one or the largest tech companies in the world.
Saying they don’t owe anything to consumers doesn’t make sense. We have literally gone after tech companies for not safeguarding consumers before. An example is several IOT baby monitors that were hacked and later pulled from shelves. The difference seems to be that this is a big tech company with a well known name brand.
We even saw this with kids buying things on parents credit cards and the company being held liable after a class action suit. So what I feel like a lot of people in this thread are saying is that this company bears no responsibility for its product being used for illegal purposes because those purposes lead to murder instead of fraud. Because I have yet to find a thread lamenting that Amazon was held liable for allowing kids to make in app purchases on their parents credit cards.
You literally linked a link that backed up what I said. Did you read that article?
“Apple announced that this app was coming in June, promising that it would allow Android users to find potentially malicious trackers being used without their knowledge. Unlike on iOS, though, it doesn’t seem like this app will constantly do scans in the background and alert you if something is up — it’s purely a manual search. Tracker Detect also doesn’t help you keep track of the AirTags attached to an Apple account, so it’s not helping Android users actually use AirTags.”
I literally said it took them 9 months from the time of the launch of the air tag to get an app for android up and running. You didn’t read. 9 months from April is December.
What bit was incorrect? And don’t give me BS about reading the article. If you want to refute what I said I’m gonna need a direct quote because literally most of my post came from multiple articles on the subject going back to May of 2021.
This article is dated December 13th 2021. At that time Apple’s Tracker Detect app did not even do active scans without input from the user.
When it launched it wasn’t available internationally, and only worked on Android 9 or higher devices.
“But it’s only available for Android 9 and higher, which rules out many of the devices at the cheap end of the Android ecosystem which are often used by vulnerable populations.”
Additionally you can modify airtags to remove or disable the speaker and the Tracker Detect app doesn’t work the way the iPhone app does on newer iPhones so the app will make a noise but the tracker won’t if the speaker is disabled making it harder to locate. It may also be harder to locate in the event that you’re using the android app because it’s not a system level app so it won’t use every single accelerometer and what not in the phone to give you an accurate location for the air tag.
You can use NFC to scan an airtag in the event that you find one. But if someone tapes an air tag to your gas tank or the underside of your car it’s unlikely that you’ll find it unless you know you’re being tracked and even if you do find it (with an updated app that does scans etc). That doesn’t mean everyone will specifically because of incompatibility with older phones and with non apple non android variant phones.
It’s not like there aren’t any trackers that lack any and all protection. I don’t really see the manufacturer at fault here.
Mini GPS trackers have been available for cheap (cheaper than AirTags) for years and they’re practically undetectable. No apps are going to help you there.
Apple built detection features, beeping alarms, and even apps for platforms beyond their own to aid people in not being tracked against their will. Tile didn’t. I don’t know any other trackers that have put as much effort into the problem.
Google wouldn’t implement OS-level features for competitors’ products so people suggesting Apple shouldn’t have launched until their competitors added in support are being unrealistic.
Here’s the thing about all this. Yes, tech existed before airtags. But apple made the tech incredibly accurate, incredibly cheap, and marketed the hell out of it.
They launched it with no regard to just how dangerous it would be, then waited a significant period of time for multiple reports to come forward that emphasized the dangers, then made safeguards after the fact. And finally didn’t implement those safeguards in a way that could be used by all users across the board right away. They were a step behind in protecting consumers pretty much every step of the way in this. It’s not like this didn’t take years to get to this point.
We can stop pretending they didn’t create a spy device for the masses.
They launched the airbag in April 2021 after a massive ad campaign.
They got the first reports of airtag stalking pretty much right away. And for apple users they created and implemented some protections right away. But it took them about 9 months to launch an android app and that app wasn’t even compatible with all android phones.
So finally two years later in 2023 they made it so you can detect air tags with android without the app. But only if you’re using a phone with android 6.0 or higher. I know it sounds unrealistic to us techies that people might be using phones that aren’t 6.0 or higher. But about 2.79% of android phones still run lollipop.
This also does nothing at all to protect people using flip phones or phones that don’t run android or apple software. There’s a cult following for dumb phones and people should be able to use whatever device they want for communication without just being left with no safeguards from one or the largest tech companies in the world.
Saying they don’t owe anything to consumers doesn’t make sense. We have literally gone after tech companies for not safeguarding consumers before. An example is several IOT baby monitors that were hacked and later pulled from shelves. The difference seems to be that this is a big tech company with a well known name brand.
We even saw this with kids buying things on parents credit cards and the company being held liable after a class action suit. So what I feel like a lot of people in this thread are saying is that this company bears no responsibility for its product being used for illegal purposes because those purposes lead to murder instead of fraud. Because I have yet to find a thread lamenting that Amazon was held liable for allowing kids to make in app purchases on their parents credit cards.
You’re absolutely incorrect. Apple released an app in December 2021 to address this. Please stop spreading unreasonable FUD. https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/13/22832731/apple-android-app-airtag-search-tracker-detect-find-my
You literally linked a link that backed up what I said. Did you read that article?
“Apple announced that this app was coming in June, promising that it would allow Android users to find potentially malicious trackers being used without their knowledge. Unlike on iOS, though, it doesn’t seem like this app will constantly do scans in the background and alert you if something is up — it’s purely a manual search. Tracker Detect also doesn’t help you keep track of the AirTags attached to an Apple account, so it’s not helping Android users actually use AirTags.”
I literally said it took them 9 months from the time of the launch of the air tag to get an app for android up and running. You didn’t read. 9 months from April is December.
What bit was incorrect? And don’t give me BS about reading the article. If you want to refute what I said I’m gonna need a direct quote because literally most of my post came from multiple articles on the subject going back to May of 2021.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-launches-airtags-and-find-my-detector-app-for-android-in-effort-to-boost-privacy/
This article is dated December 13th 2021. At that time Apple’s Tracker Detect app did not even do active scans without input from the user.
When it launched it wasn’t available internationally, and only worked on Android 9 or higher devices.
“But it’s only available for Android 9 and higher, which rules out many of the devices at the cheap end of the Android ecosystem which are often used by vulnerable populations.”
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/apples-android-app-scan-airtags-necessary-step-forward-more-anti-stalking
Additionally you can modify airtags to remove or disable the speaker and the Tracker Detect app doesn’t work the way the iPhone app does on newer iPhones so the app will make a noise but the tracker won’t if the speaker is disabled making it harder to locate. It may also be harder to locate in the event that you’re using the android app because it’s not a system level app so it won’t use every single accelerometer and what not in the phone to give you an accurate location for the air tag.
You can use NFC to scan an airtag in the event that you find one. But if someone tapes an air tag to your gas tank or the underside of your car it’s unlikely that you’ll find it unless you know you’re being tracked and even if you do find it (with an updated app that does scans etc). That doesn’t mean everyone will specifically because of incompatibility with older phones and with non apple non android variant phones.
May I ask that you read the article I linked and compare it to your statement of suggesting nothing was done for Android until 2023?
Oh. You mean the bit where I said active scanning was finally available in 2023. From Google. But only on devices with android lollipop or higher?
Yep. Completely factual.