KUALA LUMPUR, July 6 — My favourite feature on the Apple Watch isn’t any of its health tracking abilities but the simple ability to ping my phone to figure out where it is.
Of course when AirTags were announced you could colour me intrigued - no more trying to figure out if my keys were in the murky depths of my handbag or some random cafe.
Easy, yes
The AirTag is sold as a single “pack” for one which is confusing for buyers as they don’t realise a pack is just a single AirTag.
For some reason Apple doesn’t sell the 4-pack of 4 AirTags on its online store though you can order them in multiples at local Malaysian resellers.
Each pack is fairly basic—you get one AirTag that comes with its own replaceable CR2032 battery.
The battery will likely only need replacing in a year and the task of replacing it is fairly straightforward, with the batteries being fairly cheap (RM0.90 to RM2 a piece) and easy to obtain.
Cheap third-party batteries on an Apple product you say? That’s certainly not usual.
Once you take an AirTag out of its packaging and put it next to an iPhone, the phone will detect and then register your AirTag.
It will also only work with iPhone 6s and newer - basically only phones that support iOS 14.5.
Where’s my tag?
Not all supported iPhones will work the same way with AirTags however. The AirTag has a U1 chip that is also found on the iPhone 11 and iPhone 12, which allows the Precision Finding feature to work.
The U1 chip uses what is called Ultra Wideband (UWB), a technology that Samsung describes as “continuously scanning radar that can precisely lock onto an object, discover its location and communicate with it.”
Samsung? Yes, UWB isn’t exclusive to Apple tech and has actually been around for quite a while.
Apple has used UWB to make its AirDrop wireless transfers more precise but in the case of AirTags, this allows tracking of the UWB devices via spatial and directional data, using triangulation and motion to locate a tag.
You won’t get as precise a location detection with non-U1 chip phones but instead get a more general location similar to how you find registered devices with the Find My feature.
Anti-theft? Not really
Apple does not encourage using the AirTags as anti-theft devices and my own testing could see why.
I asked my brother to take an AirTag along when he went on an errand and trying to track him wasn’t exactly easy—it took quite a while for the AirTag to update with his current location and for around 10 minutes or so, the Find My app insisted the Tag was still in the vicinity even though it was more than 100 metres away in a moving vehicle.
It later refreshed to show a more recent location of the tag.
Not quite stalking-proof
Part of my tests also involved leaving the AirTags with my brother and asking him, if he had not known it was with him, would he have realised?
He said no.
The AirTags laid in his bag, without making a single beep. Apple had previously said the devices couldn’t be used to track people - I would say perhaps not... effectively.
In a previous version of the device’s firmware, it would play a sound only after three days of being separated from its owner.
The new version will play a sound at random times after eight hours and within 24 hours—still too much of a window of time to allow someone to see the location, even if it’s not quite in real-time.
Due to the lack of accuracy and real-time capabilities of the tracker, I wouldn’t suggest putting AirTags on your pet’s collar.
On cats, the AirTags would just be too big unless of course you have a cat of the few very large breeds.
Who is this for, really?
As you can’t use them well with Android devices, the AirTags will suit iOS users who already find the Find My feature very useful.
Instead of just using Find My to locate your iPhone, Watch, iPad or MacBook, you can now fix your tag to find your keys or at least check they’re with you.
They’re also handy for locating your luggage in the airport (when we travel again, someday, in the distant future).
What’s certain is that for what it does, it’s fairly expensive considering that Samsung’s similar tags are nearly RM30 cheaper.
If you’re already tied to Apple’s own ecosystem however, like everything else in the Apple domain, it “just works” and if you’re on an iPhone, it will still be an easy and efficient choice.
The AirTags are now available for purchase online on the Apple store or at an official Apple retailer for RM129 each.
