It’s one of the most bizarre Apple products I’ve ever purchased.
The best way I can think of AirTag is that it’s a product you hope you never need. And that’s about it.
You buy it, set it up with the now-standard Apple way of pairing and adding new things to your account (that is, hold the item near your phone and let magic happen), and then basically forget about it.
Of course – like most Apple products – AirTag is not a new concept. It’s just better.
Tile and similar ‘tags on things’ have existed for years, and all of them exist to use the power of people (users who also have the product) to help you find lost things. The Apple AirTag advantage is that the ‘power of the people’ is a billion or more iOS users around the planet.
You put one of these tags on something – keys, luggage, a backpack, etc. – and then leave it there. It’s only if and when you lose the item, that the AirTag really has any value. In the unfortunate incident that you do lose something, you then activate Apple’s Find My app, and leverage the power of other iOS devices to locate your item.
The magic is that wherever this AirTag is, it sends out a random encrypted signal to the air. If an iOS device comes across this signal, it relays its location to the mystical cloud. From there, if you then search for your lost item, you are connected to the network to see if the signal from your lost AirTag has been logged.
There’s more to it (many others, including the amazing iJustine, have covered the nitty-gritty of how AirTag works), including the convenient, replaceable CR-2032 battery, but that’s the general gist.
On top of this, Apple has included security and safety features in mind to prevent stalking and tracking people against their will. And of course, immediately people have come out to say that Apple is not doing enough here, even though Tile and other tags/trackers have existed for a lot longer with less security.
Either way, of course it’s important that there is security and privacy embedded here, and naturally Apple can, and no doubt, will, improve on it as we move forward.
Until then, I bought a 4-pack of these little guys (for some reason) and – after the initial thrill of opening a new Apple product passed – I guess I’ll only appreciate them if/when I lose something.
Hopefully, then, I never get to enjoy this product.
Weird.