Leaked screenshots show how Apple's tracker tags might work

Having tried such Bluetooth trackers a few years ago (don't want to get into the brand name), the experience was terrible, with connections to the phone dropping (or not pairing), the sound from the tag not being audible enough even from a short distance, and lastly, the usage of Bluetooth to just pinpoint the vicinity (not the exact location, which the UWB technology in the new iPhones and this tag is supposedly good at).

Apple can surely bring in an "it just works" kind of integration to solve some (or all?) of these pain points (like it has done with Bluetooth for AirPods), but I wonder what the pricing will be. Tile seems to be selling some of its products for about USD 12.5 per piece when bought as a pack of four. It also sells some of its products for a much higher price. If Apple sells each tag at $9.99, this would be a killer product. But it'd certainly be priced a lot higher, considering Apple's profit margins and the kind of technology in it. I'm sure it would have Bluetooth as an addition to UWB, so that it can be compatible with more iOS devices than just the iPhones 11.

If this also has a replaceable battery, which is something Apple tends to be moving away from (even the Magic Trackpad 2 from a few years ago switched to proprietary lithium batteries from the previous release that had replaceable batteries), it'd be great. This device would be a very low power device, and commonly used smaller batteries should be able to power them for a very long time. If it has a rechargeable battery, I'd bet that it'd have inductive charging like Apple Watch and iPhone.

Slightly OT: Both the existence of this and the AR headset thing have been very leaky. I mean especially stuff like this https://www.macrumors.com/2019/09/10/xcode-11-gm-confirms-ar..., where Apple included a _read me_ text file detailing the headset is incredibly.

It seems very unlikely to me that it was done by accident, and if it was done intentionally, why?

I feel someone smart with some inside knowledge should write about this (ping The Information maybe?).

I think this is a good distinguishing feature for Apple. The more Bluetooth products in a house the better these tiles will work.

I use a wireless “magic pad” and keyboard and used to use a Magic Mouse. It works great via Bluetooth and my keyboard goes weeks of daily use without a charge.

Surprisingly I tried to get a Bluetooth mouse for my windows machine and couldn’t find a decent one that worked without a dongle. Maybe it’s improved in the past two years but I was surprised that I could just pair a mouse with a windows laptop via Bluetooth without any custom drivers or custom hardware.

With Mac it was very easy. Easy enough to walk my parents through on the phone.

If all of a sudden MacBooks and iHomes and iPhones let you find your keys and remotes and whatnot, then I can see this being very popular.

Especially if they came in the form of some sort of metallic super sticker in he shape of apple’s logo that you stick onto something and the battery lasts for a year.

Or maybe this comes free with an apple+ subscription. This could be a reason to keep an apple+ sub current if you get 10 tracker stickers every year.

I'm curious whether the location reported in the screenshot is accurate, because I can't see why you'd like to advertise the fact that you work in Building 1…

Interesting bit from the prompt in iOS 13.

> "Walk around several feet and move your iPhone up and down until a balloon comes into view,"

Existing ultra wideband (eg Decawave) requires several "anchors" to triangulate the location of the tag. I wonder if Apple has built some way to locate the tag with its single anchor (the phone). Perhaps estimating the phones location as it moves up and down via accelerometer.

Can you disable it completely?

I thought wardriving was a little unethical, then it became commonplace and even a business model.

This new tech uses crowdsourcing to reach deeper than ever into people's lives, and you shouldn't have to "go along with the crowd" by default.

Not even to help with stolen stuff or any other "OMG think of the <x>!!" reason.