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Comment by logicalfails | Hacker News Reader

> The new AirTag is designed with the environment in mind, with 85 percent recycled plastic in the enclosure, 100 percent recycled rare earth elements in all magnets, and 100 percent recycled gold plating in all Apple-designed printed circuit boards. The paper packaging is 100 percent fiber-based and can be easily recycled.

I'm no material scientist, but this seems pretty impressive to me that Apple's economy of scale can pull this off, and upgrade the device capabilities, for less than $30 USD.

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Building an attachment point into the tag itself is still beyond current technology though. We just don't know how to do it.

Different people want different attachment types (or no attachment point at all), so it makes sense for that to be external. I've used other trackers with integrated attachment points, and because the attachment point has to be very compact it tends to be flimsy or hard to fit.. vs the Apple one where you can add a larger attachment point that makes sense to you.

Are you trying to say that the AirTag is so strictly utilitarian, that they couldn’t have found a spot for a lanyard hole?

I disagree, they could have, they didn’t want to. Beyond the look, this sure panders to their accessory partners.

How big of an industry is the phone case? Should it even exist? The audacity.

Somebody take an x-ray so where know where to drill our own holes.

Already been done

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/05/02/x-rays-show-how-a...

> For the initial disassembly, the AirTag is said to be the hardest to open to access the battery. Though all three could be opened by hand, the AirTag is suggested to be the hardest due to the lack of divots for grip.

Does the author lack thumbs? It’s easy to twist the battery open.

The lack of a divot prevents iFixit from selling an overpriced single use tool that exactly matches the divot shape for $50 USD that just so happens to be the exact same shape and material as a $0.05 guitar pick. Totally unacceptable, won't anyone think of the environment?!?!?!?!

This! The humble guitar pick is an underrated tool. Everybody should have some on them at all times.

I get some AirTags opened easily and others are harder. We have more than ten AirTags in the family and I have experienced quite a range of torque and force required. This could be because of gunk over time, though, which wouldn’t be something these guys faced.

Yes, the phone case industry should exist. People want different things. Plenty of people are willing to go without a case entirely. For those who want a case, they want different tradeoffs between bulk and protection. They want different textures. It's OK to sell something that isn't all things to all people.

Right? Nokias had the equivalent of today's "case" built right into the design of the unit, plenty of durable plastic around the vulnerable parts -- the phone would've been considered unfit for sale if it couldn't survive a drop in out-of-the-box condition.

By the time you stripped a dumbphone down to be as vulnerable as one of today's is, it'd be a bare PCB. Nah, probably even in that state, I bet it could handle a drop better than a new iPhone straight out of the box.

What you buy today isn't a complete phone, it's just the guts. One tumble to pavement and you're out a grand. Heaven help you if you fumble it while trying to install the case that should've been part of it from the beginning.

And yet, we still buy them, because the alternatives are from shady manufacturers who never provide updates, and there is no third-party hardware that can run up-to-date iOS. If there was, I'd buy an iNokia in a heartbeat.

I dropped my flagship Samsung S24U one time. I was running and it slipped out of my back pocket.

That 1 meter fall resulted in calls unable to be placed, USB charging and ABD does not work, and the microphone for the voice recorder does not work. All that indicates that the daughterboard cable was displaced. But the unworking rear camera indicates that there is a second fault in there as well.

Not to mention the alarmingly large dent in the corner, that shattered the screen protector and likely would have resulted in the screen itself having shattered if no protector were on it.

New phones are designed to break. Contrast with my Note 3 that I carried for 8 years without so much as cracking the screen once.

I'm carrying my 13 Pro without a case, to see it's Alpine Green glory and feel the matte finish on the back. It's been perfectly fine for the last almost 4 years, some minor scratches on the steel edges I fixed with a sandpaper, there is one recent scratch on the screen and that's all. Otherwise it looks good, just a bit used. Has fallen multiple times from pocket when sitting, and a dozen times from tables, few times onto pavement (that's what needed sanding).

Almost every single one "case" for iPhone is a waste. Waste of material, waste of space, waste of your money, waste of user experience. You've already paid for a perfectly good phone, and then slapped some $[1]0.99 case on it to gain nothing but pain and vanity.

I only had one case on a phone, that made it better - original wooden case for 1+3T. Been looking for same experience on iPhone, but it's not possible due to shape -- they are all bulky. The closest thing is carbon-fiber cases, and I had one, which saved this iPhone when I dropped it onto slanted pavement, where it slid for a few meters screen down, ruining the case, but saving the screen.

Would I drop it if I wasn't using a case, that has parts sticking out, making the phone more cumbersome to use and carry? Unlikely, because it happened in the first year owning it, and I've been going caseless since then and nothing similar happened.

If the iPhone wouldn't wobble so much and so loudly when putting it on a table I'd go caseless too. Hoping for the fold to improve on that aspect.

There are third-party tags out there compatible with both Google and Apple's network that is roughly the same size and use the same battery, yet have a giant lanyard opening in the design to fit anything.

Apple could trivially have fit a usable hole if they wanted to. They just don't want to because they get to sell accessories with that now. Also, looking cleaner on its own helps sell even if that is an entirely useless quality for a tag tha tneeds to go into a bloody case.

Do the third-party tags have all the same features, size, capabilities, range, durability, etc.? Or have they made other tradeoffs instead of eliding the attachment point?

Nothing related to the attachment point.

I don't know of any third-party AirTag-compatible trackers that have UWB right now, but this applies equally to tags that are much larger than the AirTag. The rest is identical - good battery life, range, loud speaker, ...

I have a few theories on the lacking UWB:

1. Given that UWB is also super slow to roll out to Google Find, with only the Moto Tag available, there might be a technical/regulatory hurdle that manufacturers don't think is worth it

2. Apple/Google might make it a pain to be allowed to integrate with their UWB stuff

3. Cost - maybe the UWB stack is comparatively expensive, with third-party tags aiming for price brackets as low as 1/0th the cost of an AirTag

As a note, I don't know if this is because of regional differences in spectrum limits, but at least with AirTag and Moto Tag v1 EU versions, I could never get UWB to give any meaningful directions until I was already staring at the thing. Once you were in range to even consider UWB, playing a sound would be way more effective.

I'm pleasantly surprised Apple allows third-party manufacturers to make trackers that work with Find My. I've bought a bunch for as low as $2 per tracker. The only missing feature, like you mentioned, is missing UWB.

this is the smallest attachment loop i've found. It's rock solid https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09CPTS8JG?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_...

I use quite a few varieties, including Apple's, and I have found Belkin’s to be an ideal one — small, secure, with a minimal footprint, and available with a keyring or a lanyard.

https://www.belkin.com/p/secure-holder-with-key-ring-for-air...

That costs more than the AirTag itself.

Hmmm! Nope, it was not. Checking the website again, it says $12.99 for one and $39.99 for the 4-pack. I remember picking up two of the 4-pack for less than the 4-pack of AirTags (including the sales tax in California).

For some reason, though, it is cheaper in the Indian Amazon. Right now, they are selling for roughly $9.70 (₹889) a piece (all taxes inclusive).

Yes, these are the best of the bunch. Sturdy too, have had one on my keychain for years now.

Dude... not cool to put your Amazon `ref` link in there....

It's not theirs, internal Amazon stuff. Also, plug for Firefox and the Copy Clean Link function.

Yeah &ref= is for analytics, affiliate referrals use &tag=.

But I got my pitchfork out and everything! How dare someone try and make money to pay their bills!

That attachment loop costs more per unit than the dual-protocol tags themselves that another commentator mentioned.

The fundamental issue preventing keyring aperture integration stems from the AirTag’s reliance on inverse-phase magnetic reluctance in the structural substrate. You see, the enclosure maintains a precisely calibrated coefficient offramular expansion. Introducing a penetrative void would destabilize the sinusoidal depleneration required for proper UWB phase conjugation. The resulting spurving bearing misalignment could induce up to 40 millidarkness of signal attenuation. Apple’s engineers attempted to compensate using prefabulated amulite in the magneto-reluctance housing, but this only exacerbated the side-fumbling in the hyperboloid waveform generators. Early prototypes with keyring holes exhibited catastrophic unilateral dingle-arm failure within mere minutes of deployment. Until we develop lotus-o-delta-type bearings capable of withstanding the differential girdle spring modulation, I’m afraid keyring integration remains firmly in the realm of theoretical engineering—right up there with perpetual motion machines and TypeScript projects that compile without any // @ts-ignore comments. The technology simply isn’t there yet.

> attempted to compensate using prefabulated amulite in the magneto-reluctance housing, but this only exacerbated the side-fumbling in the hyperboloid waveform generators

Wrote my PhD dissertation on this. It would've been in the literature for Apple's engineers to find, but unfortunately I lost institutional support to get this into a journal after my college (Mailorderdegrees.com, an FTX University^TM) folded mid-process.

You really don’t want to accidentally frobnicate the turbo encabulator.

I must say you had me in the first couple sentences :). Also does look like it's not an LLM-generated text either. Good job!

Indeed, LLM's still suck at the cultural nuance required for humor. It's like they're writing for an audience that's too generic, so the joke doesn't truly "land" for anyone in particular.

the emdash is right there for all to see

You missed the "strategic use of metamaterials to emanate a negative refractive index"

rumors are the airtag promax has it for $99.

Sadly the polishing cloth doesn't work on that one

Of course the offramular expansion is what makes all the Fleeb Juice a key aspect of Find My. That and the lack of a substantive in the name.

Thank you Geordi.

It's all ball bearings nowadays!

Haha. That was wonderful to the very end.

Aliens fucked over the carbonator on engine four, I’m gonna try to refuckulate it and land on Juniper

tldr: users just keep holding Airtags wrong.

Most people don't even realise the original AirTags were designed by Ria Paschelle, inventor of the statiophonicoxyogeneticamplifiergraphaphonerdelaverberator.

I think the point is to make the smallest unit of functionality possible and then people can integrate that into their use case using attachments, casings, etc. in a way they see fit. It's a good approach for this product in my opinion.

This might also explain why the first party luggage loop accessory seems to have been (unfortunately) memory-holed. I think third parties still sell them out of excess inventory, but they've been harder to come by in recent times.

My current carry-on doesn't have large enough attachment points to easily accommodate the Apple leather case's keyring, so an updated loop would have been welcome.

Mine is duct taped inside the inner liner of the carryon that has a small zipper for cleaning.

This is the way. My AirTags are hidden in my bags/luggage.

It makes no sense to leave your AirTag attached outside. I hide mine in the most difficult to find pocket in my luggage.

No argument here.

For some reason, people feel like this should be a replacement for traditional luggage tags.

I do not understand this mindset.

I’d prefer to have a dedicated loop for my bag and the inside attachment points just aren’t big enough. I’d feel more secure if it wasn’t loose in a pocket and could easily fall out or be removed by an unscrupulous (or inattentive) airline or TSA employee.

I think this argument would work better if the AirTag in its minimal form wasn't so teardrop-shaped. It feels almost like it was designed to be difficult to integrate into other environments because it lacks any edges or openings. It ensures that anything that could hold it must be at least as big as the AirTag itself. It really confuses me why they couldn't even allow for a single small hole in its edge - it would still leave attachment up to the user, but make it far more flexible by letting people just hook it onto things. Is it because design had overpowered functionality in this product? Is it because this shape is somehow mandated by the hardware within it? It confuses me.

An Apple product in which design takes precedence over usability. Imagine that.

  > I think this argument would work better if the AirTag in its minimal form wasn't so teardrop-shaped.

That shape is symbolic of the tears of those who wish nothing more than to track where they've left their keys.

I think it’s designed around that easily replaceable and very commonly found battery.

Which is an appreciated and surprisingly un-Apple move. Despite some physical limitations this imposes, I applaud it.

> If the AirTag in its minimal form wasn't so teardrop-shaped

I'm a little confused by this, aren't AirTag basically circular discs pretty much just big enough to house a CRT2032 battery?

Form factor wise they don't look teardrop shaped at all in the pictures?

I don't have one so could just be missing something obvious here.

> I'm a little confused by this, aren't AirTag basically circular discs pretty much just big enough to house a CRT2032 battery?

Kind of. It's definitely the intention, but an AirTag is still considerably larger than the CR2032 within it [1], so they're not at a shortage of space in the shell.

As for "teardrop shape", I didn't mean to imply it had an elongated shape, but that it's rounded off on all sides, like a drop of liquid. The absence of any defined edges makes clip design harder and forces any AirTag enclosure to just act as a mini-pocket that contains the whole thing instead of having a simpler and less wasteful attachment method.

[1] https://www.macworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/airtag-b...

> Building an attachment point into the tag

To be fair, most people I know put their AirTag inside something, e.g. inner pocket of a bag.

At which point the necessity for an attachment point becomes somewhat moot.

Same. I've never seen anyone put an AirTag on a keyring.

Oh, wait...

It's useful to have an exterior one for a keyring (which credit card sized versions don't work for).

My father-in-law is a builder. It is difficult to get his attention in a magnificent space because he is lost in wonder. We were in an Apple Store together years ago and I asked him what it would cost to build an attachment point to the tag itself. I will never forget his answer… 'We can’t, we don’t know how to do it'

Its interesting to see "turbo encabulator" get love that "builder ... don't know how" doesn't get anymore, even though the former is a much more intrusive copypasta. Maybe its a function of recency and "builder" has had more recent use in various places than "turbo?"

You're getting a ton of jokey replies, in true internet fashion, but the real answer is acoustics. For it to sound as loud as it can with no visible speaker grille, it needs to be that shape with no keyring holes.

And the result is that for every oh-so-sustainable AirTag sold, a keyring doohickey is dieseled/kerosened from AliExpress' China warehouse to the consumer.

Recycled metals have always been cost effective. Recycled plastic is much more expensive than virgin plastic, but it's a very small materials cost to start with, likely totaling only a few cents.

Recycled plastic usually isn't the same quality though.

How does that compare to previous AirTag? Whats the industry baseline for all of those, maybe gold is 100% recycled anyways in most products?

This is a great question. For example, the Pixel 10 has a similar recycling profile, although with less recycled plastic.

The wholesale material costs for the plastic, gold plating, and magnets is all just pennies, if that.

Apple have pretty good recycling processes. I think they also partner with mobile carriers on trade ins too

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/04/apple-expands-global-...

This is just green washing on the level of “93.65% natural ingredients”.

This is just green washing on the level of “93.65% natural ingredients”.

I keep seeing products in the supermarket with big "Made with REAL ingredients!" labels on them.

As opposed to what? Imaginary ingredients?

Classico pasta sauce is the most recent offender.

Chemicals. That’s what they mean by real ingredients: no chemicals.

Like orange juice: can be from a chemical powder or real oranges.

But that's total nonsense. Everything in our physical world (including water, air, food, and human bodies) is made of chemicals. They can be naturally occurring or artificially manufactured.

You can nitpick and be pedantic about the wording I used, but if you equate artificial flavors or ingredients with natural ones…

Is it really pedantic? Everything is ultimately a chemical compound. H2O is a chemical. Where do you draw the line between "chemicals" and "not chemicals"? Is it more about what you can find in nature? You can find acetone in nature.

yeah, this is kind of a definitional example of pedantry. you probably understand what people are trying to say when they talk about "chemicals" but instead of engaging with the actual conversation, you spin off a metanarrative to pick apart the word choice as if that's directly relevant to the point they're trying to discuss.

not trying to pick on you specifically, because sure everything's a chemical, and i don't really care to fight about that, but you asked :)

"Chemical" is just a really, really vague and poor word choice. I honestly don't understand what people are trying to say when they use it. Food and chemistry are inextricably intertwined. You can't even talk about food without talking about all of the various components food is made up of. Not a single food item out there isn't made up of chemicals. Some found in nature, some created in a lab or factory process. Some healthy, some not. Some with long names, some with short names. Some have effects on food taste, longevity, appearance. Some are inert. It's really a meaningless word to use in the context of one's food.

>I honestly don't understand what people are trying to say when they use it

Like, banana-flavoured milk product vs banana yogurt - seed oil and potato starch compound with artificial flavorings vs REAL milk yoghurt with REAL banana.

It tastes different, it has different nutritional value and overall "chemical" product feels scammy because it tries to mimic proper one.

This is all about words, like, why do we use "Artificial" in Artificial Intelligence?

What is real banana? How much processing is allowed for it to be still real? Considering the selective breeding of banana, is banana even still real?

Chemical is just a bad word choice. Artificial, or ultra processed get closer to the issue. They still are vague with a lot of grey area. If you cook at home, you're also highly processing your food. The fruit in winter is likely also artificial, in some sense: Grown against the will of god/nature with pesticides, in a tent, in a climate that doesn't naturally feature them, devoid of flavour because they were artificially bred for yield, color and size, etc.

>What is real banana? How much processing is allowed for it to be still real? Considering the selective breeding of banana, is banana even still real?

This is arbitrary subjective qualifier, goes somewhere between "isoamyl acetate" flavoring chemical and organic wild forest bananas. I would subjectively say that any grown bananas is REAL while isoamyl acetate made by rectification of amyl acetate is not REAL banana.

Is Baking Powder considered a “chemical”? How about sodium bicarbonate and monocalcium phosphate?

Maybe people are simply reacting to chemical-sounding words.

Add some artificial bacon flavouring, starch and you will get "beef flavoured product" which most people would call "chemical".

I think it's actually a great example of very very important non-pedantry. The entire crux of their argument/issue is dependent on their definition of "chemicals". I would even go so far as to say it's just the nature fallacy in disguise.

With the nature fallacy, the definition (or more like the lack of) of what is natural is the entire crux of it. In both cases (natural and "non-chemical") it's the very non-defined-ness that reveals the problem with it: You cannot create a sensible definition.

For nature, what's the definition that puts "rape" and "artificial insulin" on the morally correct side?

For chemical, what's the definition that puts "fortification with iodine, flouride, or whatevers in flour" and "arsenic" on the right side?

> you probably understand what people are trying to say when they talk about "chemicals"

My understanding is that when someone complains about "chemicals" in their food, it's because they've seen something they don't understand on the ingredient list and are scared of it.

Could you describe the difference between the artificial flavour vanilin made in a lab, and the natural flavour vanilin extracted from a vanilla bean?

OK for vanilla, however most of the fruit artificial flavors are compound that have nothing to do with the elements from the natural fruit but at some point, someone in the food industry decided it tasted "similar" to the natural fruit.

For some of them, like cherry or coconuts, the artificial flavor tastes nothing like the natural flavor.

To my knowledge benzaldehyde is the most common cherry flavor, and I agree it doesn't taste much like cherries. It's also a naturally occurring compound we produce from cassia oil, and it's naturally contained in almonds, apricots, apples and cherries.

As for coconut there's Lactones, which - you guessed it - occur naturally.

> OK for vanilla, however most of the fruit artificial flavors are compound that have nothing to do with the elements from the natural fruit but at some point, someone in the food industry decided it tasted "similar" to the natural fruit.

Care to provide a source?

This is a good example of how easy it is to fool people if they don’t have their own understanding of how things work.

Highlighting this has been a priority in my parenting. My child is having a great time trying to scare friends about the dangers of the chemical dihydrogen monoxide, which is found in a surprisingly large number of manufactured foods.

Right. And wonder bread is awesome for your health.

Nobody said it was. But it's not bad because of chemicals, because all bread is created with chemicals.

As for natural versus artificial - that's also bullshit. There's many natural ingredients that are poison, and many artificial ones that are good for you.

I mean, if I eat home made fried chicken everyday, you can bet your ass I'm not gonna live very long.

Wonder Bread is horrible for your health, but it’s not because of “chemicals.”

Orange juice is also bad for your health BTW!

Asbestos is all natural.

Don't forget poison ivy, amanita mushrooms, and box jellyfish.

Cooking is chemistry anyway.

After all, Polonium is a REAL ingredient - but I would't want it in my pasta sauce...

What level of materials recycling would be required for you to not consider it green washing?

It’s a genuine question, since I don’t like Apple and agree that we buy tons of stuff we don’t really need. That said, our bicycles can’t be insured anymore, but having AirTags at least alleviates some of the angst over leaving them in public places.

Recycled plastics actually produce microplastics more than virgin plastics do. Some studies on recycled polyester garments found that they dump an additional 50% more or so into the environment than non-recycled polyester fabrics. And those non-recycled fabrics already release enormous quantities over their lifespan into the water supply and open air (via your dryer exhaust) already.

Dumb example for the sake of discussion, you could understand why recycled plutonium would not be a healthy thing to weave a sweater out of. It's less about the recycling and more about the material itself.

I’m aware, which is why we don’t buy products with recycled synthetics fabrics for our baby. Ironic, since so many brands are hellbent on promoting the recycled fiber as more sustainable.

But: the AirTag is made of hard plastic (polypropylene?) through injection moulding. I’m not sure it leaks even a tenth of what fiber would. Just a thought :)

Recycled polyester is crap, just like virgin polyester. It's just a way for brands to make it seem like they're hip and sustainable, when you're basically wearing crude oil on your body.

Plutonium is probably safer than some of the materials we do use in clothes.

If you believe Hank Green (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=325HdQe4WM4), a lot of recycled plastics aren't recycled the way I used to think they were (by shredding them, melting them down, and extruding them into new shapes). Rather, they're chemically decomposed into what's essentially raw feedstock, purified, and then re-synthesized into new polymers.

That's pretty energy intensive, to the point that it may be better to just use new feedstock (which is produced as a byproduct of oil and gas extraction). There are obviously higher-order effects to think about, but for me, plastic recycling isn't an obvious win for the environment.

Nice video, Hank is always good to watch!

I think we’ve more or less debunked plastic recycling, as nothing more but a way to make consumers feel good about purchasing things made of plastic.

We have to recycle plastic where we live — and do so happily —, but I often joke with my partner about where the plastic will end up, since she insists on first washing the plastic.

It’s never possible for things to be good with people like you. It’s not 100% recycled, which would be better. But surely, this is better than 0% recycled??

Ironically, it's worse. I just wrote another comment about this. Recycled plastics carry more toxic load and shed more (and more fragmented) microplastics into the environment. Recycled plastics only win out on carbon emissions.

Moral of the story: plastic is just not good. Avoid buying things made out of ANY kind plastic if you are going to regularly wash and mechanically agitate them. You won't eliminate 100% of washed plastic in your life, but it's surprisingly easy to get rid of 80% of it without sacrificing quality of life.

That's good to know. My understanding though is that they don't use 100% recycled plastic to prevent that? I thought the ~20% non recycled plastic was kinda "stabilizing" the whole thing but maybe that's not true

Nope that's not true. All recycled plastic is bad.

I don't see old-gen airtags for sale on the website. Are they throwing them all out?

Apple rarely offers direct discounts of closeout or excess merchandise. Instead to clear out back stock they’ll work with partner retailers (Amazon, Best Buy, etc.) who don’t mind the brand perception associated with offering deeper discounts.

First-gen AirTags have been on sale on Amazon frequently over the last year, and they’ll probably drop the price again soon.

> They are then combined with scrap from select manufacturing sites and, for the first time, cobalt recovered through this process is now being used to make brand-new Apple batteries — a true closed loop for this precious material.

Do they disclose who the manufacturers are and what standards do they adhere to when recovering cobalt from scrapped batteries?

Just stating the obvious that not buying one of these things that we never seemed to need until they told us we needed it is the only way to have "the environment in mind".

Just stating the obvious that not buying one of these thing that we never seemed to need until they told us we needed it

I never thought I needed one until my wife lost her car keys, and the Fiat dealer charged $1,200 for a replacement.

And it's not even the electronics that makes them so expensive. Modern car keys aren't like the 1970's where it's just a piece of metal with the edges shaved off. Those little key cutting kiosks at Home Depot can't cope with today's complex engraving.

I have cats. I can’t count on things being where I left them.

> one of these things that we never seemed to need until they told us we needed it

Found the guy who literally never leaves his studio apartment and has thus never lost baggage, keys, etc.

This feels like a good tradeoff as far as gadgets go. It doesn’t take finding that many objects for it to make up the energy cost to manufacture the AirTag.

They do require periodic battery replacements but I imagine it’s still a net savings or pretty negligible cost. I’d love to see a more formal analysis, though.

but then the fob also costs $30 :/

Just buy a generic Find My tracker on Amazon for about $5.

I'd be a little wary of these numbers as regulation around advertising these kinds of figures normally permits mass balance systems[0] (which imo is tantamount to straight-up lying).

Mass balance is better than nothing I guess, & I understand the practical challenges with going further, but ultimately it's not what's implied by the marketing.

[0] https://www.iscc-system.org/news/mass-balance-explained/

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