Apple AirTags
Former MacFormat editor, Graham Barlow is wondering if Apple really thought AirTags through before it released them…
If there’s one thing that Apple has put above all others in recent years it’s your privacy. For instance, Apple was willing to go up against the biggest names in tech when it introduced App Tracking Transparency (ATT) to its iOS platform in 2021, stopping ads from tracking you without your consent. In many ways this attitude is the key differentiator between Apple and all the other big tech companies, whose business models often seem to revolve around capturing as much data about you as possible and then monetising that data through advertising. Instead, Apple wants you to have a great experience using its hardware, so that you buy more of it.
It’s therefore curious to find Apple generating headlines about security concerns. I’m talking here about AirTags, of course. AirTags are the small cylindrical discs that tap into Apple’s Find My network to pinpoint their location and report it back to their owner. They can be attached to key rings, so you can always find where your lost keys or luggage are. At only £29 a pop they’re relatively inexpensive, which unfortunately makes them perfect for somebody engaged in criminal activity who wants to track your location. They could slip one into your bag or car, for example, then track your movements, even to your home address. In more than one case in the wild now, a woman has received a notification on her phone that an unknown AirTag has been tracking her movements, but until recently it has been almost impossible to pinpoint the AirTag’s location. Now Apple is acknowledging the problem and doing something about it by letting iPhone 11, 12 and 13 users locate a rogue AirTag. Apple has said it will also make the sound that an abandoned AirTag makes louder and show a new notice when you set up an AirTag that tells you that tracking somebody without their permission is a crime.
Of course, if you have an older iPhone, or an Android phone, then some of these changes are less than useful, and they’re not coming in until ‘later this year’, but it’s good that Apple has acknowledged that there is a problem and done something about it.
AirTags do seem genuinely useful in everyday use, but it’s still strange to find Apple involved in a controversy like this, especially when it usually takes your privacy so seriously.
ABOUT GRAHAM BARLOW
Graham Barlow is MacFormat’s Editor-inChief. He first edited the mag in 2004 when an Apple iBook with G3 processor running OS X 10.3 Panther was ‘cool’, and cost a month’s salary. As a podcaster, his favourite piece of Apple tech these days is his AirPods.