Apple boosts AirTag privacy

There are two interesting things to learn in this story from a reporter at The New York Times who tracked her husband using AirTags, Tiles and a dedicated GPS-enabled tracker.

  1. In Manhattan, an AirTag proved far better at real-time tracking than the dedicated GPS-enabled tracking device, thanks to the density of people with iPhones.

  2. The AirTags were far better than the other trackers at alerting the husband that he was being followed.

For all the brouhaha about AirTags and stalking, they are better than other tracking devices at alerting you to nefarious uses. Apple mentioned this in Thursday's pledge to make its tracking tags even more secure: Stalking with trackers is already a problem, you just don't know about it. Plus, AirTags are better than other devices at alerting you to any potential problems.

As the reporter's husband concluded at the end of the experiment:

“For all the bad press the AirTags have gotten, and as flaky as the detection mechanisms were, at least I was consistently getting notifications they were following me,” he said. “The privacy dangers of the other trackers were way worse.”

-- Leander Kahney, EIC.

Apple said Thursday it will update its item trackers with new privacy warnings, better warning sounds and smarter Find My tracking. The efforts comes as the company tries to improve security in the wake of criminal activity involving the devices, such as theft and stalking.

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