10 Comments

This is quite cool. I was wondering how this would work in a small village where I live where there are limited iPhones nearby, but you answered this nicely. Super informative, Kim! 👏

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without iPhones or other Apple products nearby, it won't work; I use Moto Tags for Android. Happy to read your comment, Akos.

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oh, I didn’t know Android had its own thing for this too. 🙌

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I think this really shows what kind of products you can build at a big company. Without the iPhone being extended enough, this product wouldn’t have been born.

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true, waiting to get more alternatives for the Android market.

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[...] The AirTag broadcasts its public key every 2 seconds over BLE.[...]

I'm wondering how they optimize this to ensure that it does not consumer too much battery.

Thanks for sharing Neo!

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good question, I think having a custom chip and sending only the necessary data is the answer. Probably they adjust the broadcast power based on its movement and proximity of devices.

I don't know if more information is available in the public domain.

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Can some one else tap that broadcasted public key as an air tag leading to wrong locations for the air tags?

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Doesn't it create legal/ethical problems to move someone's data with another person's phone, without them knowing or consenting about it?

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They rotate public keys and the whole data transfer is anonymized + encrypted.

I don't know if opting out from the crowdsourcing network is possible.

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