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For me, 95% of the functionality of Airtags would still be there if it only worked with your own apple devices. I have found airtags for finding things when I lose my keys/wallet around the house. I do leave them at a restaurant tying it to my iPhone would still show the last place I had it.

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I felt the same way about Tile back in the day when I used it.

I didn’t want my tile part of their “network”, I didn’t want other tile users to relay the location, I didn’t want my phone relaying other tile users’ locations. I didn’t want my tiles location going to any server at any point. I just wanted a to be able to make my wallet beep if I’m near enough to it for it to be in range of my phone. But the rest of the “features” couldn’t be disabled, so I threw my tiles out.

Years ago, I had a tile on my keys. I left them on top of my car in a parking garage. When I went back, they were gone. Someone took them, probably meaning well but didn’t leave a note saying where they took them to. So that sucked. To this day, despite the tile being in “lost mode”, I’ve never gotten a ping. There’s real value in these trackers, because people pick up things that aren’t theirs.

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