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▲ lifeisloving 2 hours ago

Do Iphone users get notifications everytime an airtag is nearby them??

▲pnw an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, within about 30 minutes. They are basically useless for theft prevention as a result. Apple nerfed the functionality after someone used it for stalking. You'll notice there is no mention of theft prevention in the marketing materials anymore.

Apple even provide a handy Android app for locating them.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.trac...

▲Gigachad an hour ago | parent | next [-]

There never was mention of theft prevention. The release day marketing was about losing your keys in the couch. Day one ios would alert you if a tag was tracking you but it took a while for them to collaborate with Android on it.

The societal harm from allowing cheap silent tracking of people is greater than the benefit of recovering stolen bags.

▲gfody an hour ago | parent [-]

maybe they could set something up where local pd handles the tracking if/when necessary

▲ncr100 31 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Android 6 and up has in unbuilt support, per that app

▲kalleboo 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You get a notification when an AirTag is following you for some time, but the AirTags owner is not near it. It's meant to detect someone slipping an AirTag on you without the false alarms from, say, taking a walk with a friend who has one in their backpack.

▲mahboi an hour ago | parent | next [-]

So what good is piercing the AirTag's speaker?

▲dwaite 36 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

It stops the audible notifications for people who aren't looking at a phone screen.

▲tuvix 34 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

They also ring when a non-associated iphone is moving with them for some time.

▲froh an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Wait so a thieve an eye with an iPhone who steals my expensive bicycle that I have tagged with an airtag Is receiving a notification that there is an airtag "following" them nearby?

▲cicko an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, the moral of the story is - don't steal expensive bikes if you don't want to get spammed by notifications that the bike is following you.

▲klipt an hour ago | parent [-]

With the side effect that the thief can easily find and remove the tag.

▲Barbing an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They always talk about lost items in their marketing. They don’t talk about theft prevention or finding pets or anything. Gotta go for a mini GPS tracker or something for protecting $$$$(+) bikes (which should never leave one’s sight anyway).

▲TeMPOraL an hour ago | parent [-]

> They don’t talk about theft prevention or finding pets or anything.

In particular I'm guessing you can't use it to track your kid's backpack either; for that, you should instead buy your 7yo their own iPhone.

> Gotta go for a mini GPS tracker or something for protecting $$$$(+) bikes

The same one actual stalkers would use?

▲dwaite 33 minutes ago | parent [-]

> In particular I'm guessing you can't use it to track your kid's backpack either; for that, you should instead buy your 7yo their own iPhone.

You can - there will be spurious phone notifications and audible notifications.

▲TeMPOraL 31 minutes ago | parent [-]

Meaning: you can't, because the point of it is to help protect your kid (or, more probably, help find their backpack when they absent-mindedly lose sight of it), not to spam teachers with notifications and disrupt everyone with random beeping.

▲gbalduzzi an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes. The alternative is to have stalkers using hidden airtags

▲msteffen 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah, I forget the wording but there’s a notification like “so-and-so’s AirTag is near you and they can see where you are.” My spouse put AirTags in our baby stuff and I get them whenever I’m using it.

▲grumbelbart2 an hour ago | parent [-]

It's also other devices. I used to get a notification that my wife's AirPods would be following me. It only got silenced when we formed an Apple family.

▲nazgul17 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We have AirTags registered to my wife's account because I use Android. I have one in my work backpack, and every morning I get a notification that an unknown tracker is following me. I wish there was a way to silence the warning for that specific tag.

▲sparqlittlestar an hour ago | parent | next [-]

My husband's "shared" his with me and now I don't get warnings anymore, but we're both on iOS

▲gfody 41 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

this is the perfect use case for a little faraday baggy

▲jaredwiener 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If an unrecognized AirTag is following you, you'll get a notice.

I'm not constantly notified that my keys are with me. But if you stuck an AirTag in my backpack, my phone would tell me.

▲forsalebypwner 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No, only if an airtag that's not theirs follows them for an amount of time

▲drusepth 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Not sure about on iPhone but Android definitely alerts you if an unknown airtag follows you while moving.