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It does provide a benefit to you. You get to use the Find My network to help locate any missing devices you have and in exchange your devices also work as a node in the Find My network to help other people locate their devices. You can disable this by disabling Find My.

But that's the point OP is trying to make. It's an opt-out feature, and only once you know it's an issue and continuously making sure you're never opted back in.

Opt-in vs opt-out is a huge psychological difference.

Opt-out organ donation has like 90+% of the population, while opt-in only around 10%. You can believe how much of a difference does that mean.

The US is opt-in and has an organ donor rate of about 60%.

More than half of adults in the US choose to opt-in, and I believe that if there were better education and marketing campaigns for organ donation, more people would sign up, too.

Nothing stops Apple from doing the same education and marketing for an opt-in system.

Maybe. It's clear that disabling Find My means, per the description, that _your_ device is no longer a findable target via that network.

It's a lot less clear that it also means you are no longer a node in the network for other findable targets.

> My other concern was if these are hijacking your data plan. Maybe it's not that significant amount if you have a huge plan but like Ting for example gives you 100MB of data usage each month on their basic plan. That's MEGAbytes. I checked my system clock app for example, and it's using like 500 MB a year of cell data. So the cumulative data it uses per year is about half of that plan's budget.

I remember just a year or so ago everyone (this is hyperbole obviously) was freaking out at the idea of Amazon's Sidewalk using MEGAbytes of THEIR internet. Its kinda amusing how those concerns are rarely brought up for Apple products.

> Its kinda amusing how those concerns are rarely brought up for Apple products.

It's always brought up with regards to Apple products. Any justified or unjustified controversy surrounding Apple is magnified because of how divisive they are as a company. You're making this remark in a thread dedicated to discussion surrounding this controversy.

You're right, but I think the magnification of Apple news is more a result of them being the largest company in the world than them being divisive. Every decision Apple makes affects a significant portion of humanity.

I don't think that's true. While I do agree that it's a significant aspect now, Apple has almost always been controversial, at least among nerds. People were arguing about Apple products before their huge resurgence.

You can turn cellular data off in iOS.

If you have 100MB a month it would probably be smart to turn it off until you are ready to check email or whatever and there is no Wi-Fi.

That’s a big hammer

There is low data mode and per app opt-in/out

100MB is enough to send hundreds of free internet messages such as iMessage or more traditional chat apps which avoids using limited text messages on the plan. That’s a legitimate reason to keep it enabled.

If you don’t use text/call data and can get away with mostly messaging on wifi and then having that the cell connectivity for wife check ins or emergencies at work, this plan costs like $5 a month or something. Compared to a jump to $20 or higher at the next tier. For a lot of people, that’s significant.

Work arounds shouldn’t be a real solution anyway. People can’t restart their computer to solve basic IT problems. Imagine if they had to change their phone settings through multiple layers of menus.

Aside from all or nothing cell data toggle, I’m not even 100% sure if disabling Find My’s data connection stops this situation. It could go through an unknown system service for all I know. Anyhow, I classify this as an essential security app that would be unfairly unreasonable to have to opt out of for this specific use case.

Your paid phone and service just shouldn’t be freely used without your consent to benefit other people while costing you money.

Maybe it’s a nice idea, but that’s not how anything works in the society we currently have.

Edit: also another thought on this topic as a whole… if you’re the only person who goes through a specific area that someone set up with AirTags, wouldn’t that make you personally identifiable when the AirTag owner gets alerted?

You could set these up in a vault for example. Imagine the WiFi signal gets through when it’s open. When the one vault manager comes to complete the alert circuit, you would have the times he’s there or even as a boss you could see if he’s skipping his duty.

I disagree with your concept of consent. You clearly accepted Apple's ToS when you configured your phone. I'm sure buried somewhere in there is a line about this. You also consented by simply buying their product. When it comes to Apple or Google's ecosystem you aren't ordering off the menu, you're eating at the buffet.

The solution seems very clear and simple to me. If you want finer grain control of your device, don't buy an Apple or Android device. There are plenty of alternatives.

"There are plenty of alternatives"

You forgot the /s

I use an app network firewall and restrict via whitelist of what I want to use on cellular data or fixed wifi (mobile hotspots are tricky).

> If you're a cargo delivery guy and someone decides to ship 500 airtags for fun that you walk by, are you now just screwed in over charges

No because AirTags have to be enabled and registered before they become part of the network. At shipping time their battery is not plugged in.

I meant shipping activated AirTags as a “prank” or to otherwise cause chaos. People are already shipping individual activated ones to see where they end up.

Or if 500 separate people saw those news stories and each did it individually for legitimate package tracking, perhaps that would be a more believable situation.

That's a $50k prank to … use up some data and battery?

For 50k you can do a lot more damage "as a prank".

I assume you never visited YT?

>I have been asking about things like this and been talked down to constantly as if I don't know how bluetooth works

I am still unsure how to deal with these people. It would be rude to quote them and name them.

And that is especially true with Modern Apple. I say modern as in those who joined the cult after iPhone. These Apple apologist and fanatics thinks Apple could do no wrong.