Apple is a very careful company. It rarely releases any tech that hasn't been throughly tested and vetted -- whether hardware or software.

But there are always unintended consequences.

Take AirTags, Apple's property-tracking devices. They are designed to track lost items, and Apple built in some thoughtful safeguards to prevent their misuse.

Unfortunately, thieves found a clever -- and nefarious -- use for the little trackers. Better pay attention to those unwanted tracking alerts!

-- Leander Kahney, EIC.

Car thieves find a new use for AirTags — www.cultofmac.com

Thieves in Canada apparently found an unintended and novel use for Apple’s AirTag locators. They use the tiny devices to track cars they’d like to steal.

2021’s most popular emoji will leave you crying with joy — www.cultofmac.com

People like to laugh. And that leads to Tears of Joy accounting for more than 5% of all emoji use in 2021. We also love to love. That put the heart in second place.

Award-winning, Viking-themed platformer 'Oddmar+' makes the jump to Apple Arcade — www.cultofmac.com

Oddmar, which won the Apple Design Award in 2018, is now available on Apple's subscription service. Friday’s other addition is Dandara: Trials of Fear, also a platformer.

Bulky but brilliant iPhone case stops people flicking through your nudes — www.cultofmac.com

Don’t you just hate it when you show someone a photo on your iPhone and they rudely assume it’s OK to start flicking through your gallery? This iPhone case was designed to prevent that from happening.

Last chance to get top-rated language app Babbel for just $179 — www.cultofmac.com

It’s one of the best-selling language learning apps out there, earning 4.6 out of 5 stars on the App Store from almost 300,0000 reviewers. And it’s on sale for $179 — but only for one more day (regularly $499).

Apple Music subscribers get ‘exclusive gifts’ over the holidays — www.cultofmac.com

The freebies include a special EP from Coldplay — exclusive to Apple Music — as well as playlists and other “goodies” from A-list artists like Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, Elton John and DJ Khaled.

Prince William is the next guest on Time to Walk for Apple Fitness+ — www.cultofmac.com

The “special holiday episode” will close out the series on December 6.

M1 MacBook Air anchors ‘grad school procrastination station’ [Setups] — www.cultofmac.com

If you’re going to hunker down in a corner of a room and work until you’ve earned an MBA, you might as well do it on an M1 MacBook Air and have a nice view of passing trains. Except both of those things might help you procrastinate.

Tweet o' the day

One more thing ...

"If you keep your eye on the profit, you’re going to skimp on the product. But if you focus on making really great products, then the profits will follow." -- Steve Jobs