And Apple did tout the features intended to discourage it being used this way.
AirTags, like knives, are a useful tool that can also be used for purposes which are either illegal or borderline illegal. But we have so many tools which are like that, are we going to sue every company that sells something that could be used nefariously?
Not quite true. I went to AUS a couple of years ago with a pocket knife, at one point I took it out to cut something and someone mentioned to me that a knife like that was illegal in AUS so I had to keep it hidden in the hotel the rest of the trip.
"It’s also illegal to: carry most knives or any weapons in public without a ‘good reason’"
"A court will decide if you’ve got a good reason to carry a knife or a weapon if you’re charged with carrying it illegally."
Also from the site, one of the requirements is "are not lock knives (they do not have a button, spring or catch that you have to use to fold the knife)"
My pocket knife folds open and then catches, meaning I have to push a little metal tab out of the way to fold it back closed. This seems safer to me, since otherwise the blade might fold up on my fingers while I'm trying to use it. Would this be illegal in the UK?
I think those are legal, I think you've got it reversed. Knives that lack some kind of mechanism that locks the blade open are illegal (e.g. a butterfly knife).
Thinking about it, I think that section is to specifically ban butterfly knives. That's the only style of non-fixed blade knife I can think of that doesn't have a compliant locking mechanism.
Regardless i think it doesn't make sense to have a legal gray zone where it's legal but you can still be sued about it. Either make it illegal or certain behaviors illegal and sue for that but arbitrary lawsuits are not the answer
> https://www.statista.com/statistics/195325/murder-victims-in...
Well, yeah, if you consider the limits on rifles to be severe, why would you be surprised that they're used less for murder? If anything, that sounds like an argument that limits work and we should be limiting _more_ things
That's just cherry picking data. You're comparing the broadest possible category "knives" with a subset of another category -- rifles are a subset of knives.
You might note that certain categories of knives are regulated, and actually illegal in many states. Not all knives are the same. This is obvious. But your point ignores it.
Actually in the UK, you are not allowed to sell a knife of any kind to someone under 18 years of age (though Scotland allows 16 and 17 year olds to buy cutlery).
https://www.police.uk/pu/advice-crime-prevention/possession-...
The families of the children murdered at Sandy Hook have sued gun companies and succeeded (at least to some degree, they settled) through a workaround of the federal law. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/15/nyregion/sandy-hook-famil...
People do all the time[0]. Do they win? Not sure.
0. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/11/29/uvalde-shooting-laws...
_You_, don't sue gun companies. Don't project. Plenty of other people do and get money from it.
I don't know enough about the product to know if any of that has any merit, but I assume that's what the plaintiffs will try to prove.
In this cause the suit is that the gun is defective, it can fire without a trigger pull.
The Apple suit is claiming negligence on the part of Apple because they did NOT do something "simple" to prevent tracking. It'll likely come down to whether that "simple" thing actually was, whether it was known, etc, etc.
How a product is marketed can also come into play, which is why Apple has been very careful (just like gun manufacturers) to never say or imply that it could be used for crimes.
They have talked about it:
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/02/an-update-on-airtag-a...
Even on the main product page (https://www.apple.com/airtag/) ..."AirTag is designed to discourage unwanted tracking".
I bought a handful of Tiles to track my ATV/snowmobile that I leave out of state. Even when they're in my driveway, well within my Wi-Fi range they do not work. I'm going to ditch them for AirTags.
I'm going to remove them and attach to "household" items instead.
To find it locally the simpler ones just use received signal strength over Bluetooth, Airtags and iPhones have a more sophisticated system with a higher frequency radio with better localization, I don't remember the details.
It's this first system where other devices take part in a huge sensor network that makes Airtags so powerful, there a lot of iOS devices out there and crucially they all run this code in the background. Tiles will never work as well, because you won't get the same number of people willingly running their app all the time. It's a network effect more than a technical problem.
Any tile-enabled phone -> sees a tile -> sends a packet to the Tile mothership with the tile UUID + phone location.
(Plus perhaps some nuances like guessing a more specific location for the tag based on bluetooth radio data)
We do not use wifi - as to other commenters it is bluetooth only, but we have some other big plans in the works.