of course it would require opt-in from your family and opt out available at any time. then the AirTag should default to functioning like an unshared AirTag. that doesn't seem like it would be too hard for apple to do.

Right, an air tag that’s shared with family increases transparency. The AirTag can still function as it’s meant to, but wouldn’t alert when my wife takes our dog to the park without me. It would be useless for stalking my wife because she would be able to see the AirTag and its location in her account too. As for handling breakups, Apple has a great privacy checkup tool that lets you completely separate your shared data with someone instantly.

The solution here is shared AirTags. No added risk, fewer false positives which in turn make people safer because they’re more likely to trust the alerts they get.

I knew that fucker was stalking me, I fucking knew it.

The partner could tell they opted out when the tag stops moving. This comes down to risk/reward, lots of risk for Apple on anything related to privacy (stalking), but minor rewards (you can stalk your family pet).

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So?

Who cares? The damn thing tells you the location of something for $29. Tell me how spending $100+ on a Fi collar with some monthly data plan isn't overkill? Same shit, different design and price.

This is a nothingburger. She either needs to register the AirTag on her account or merge her account with her partner’s.

Or more phones with multiple carriers and better reception.

In its original form, Bing AI could have posed a threat to Google.

In its current form, it doesn't even pose a threat to DuckDuckGo.

I have the same issue. It shouldn’t be hard for Find My to note that users I’m already sharing my location with don’t gain any information from seeing my AirTags.

Because you could be using it to track an estranged family member. iOS should be giving you the option when it notifies you to ignore it for a while.

Assuming the daycare has wi-fi that would explained the improved "coverage" from employees' phones being connected to it.

Oh no!

Anyway...

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The problem becomes people using it to stalk as mentioned.

Yeah I keep one on my dog and it was super helpful when she got out to explore.

It isn’t perfect but since I’m in a city it gives semi up to date info on the location which allowed me to find her much quicker

No, you can’t. My wife and I share our locations with Find My Friends, so it’s not like we don’t know where each other are anyway. And yet if I grab her keys off the counter to run to store, my phone gripes about it. I really wish my phone would:

• Let me to add a specific device to an “allow list”, like “don’t warn me about this device again because I don’t care if my wife’s car key knows where I am”.
• Warn me about trackers not registered to someone I’m already sharing my location with. I don’t care if my wife tracks me. She already is anyway, and vice versa, and it’s consensual.

Air Tag hardware is genuinely great, but it’s so limited by the risk that someone might misuse it that Apple made it hard to use correctly.

And no many times I hear the tired party line that “it’s only meant for misplaced personal items”, they’re perfect for other things like tracking stolen bicycles — or pets. I roll my eyes when people are shocked, shocked!, that anyone’s surprised when someone hangs one on their dog’s collar. “It’s not meant to track your pet, even though it’s almost like someone custom designed it to be absolutely perfect for that use!”

For everyone shouting about it not being a pet tracker, fine. I’ve give a few other use cases:

I have one in my GoPro bag. My wife took the GoPro for a weekend, so she got notified.

I have one on my keychain, and let my daughter use the car. Same result.

Finally, I have one in my laptop bag, and left it in my wife’s car.

In all of these cases, I want the AirTag to be shared with my family. I want them to be able to track those items as well as me, because they might need to locate them when I’m not around.

Since we are all part of the same Apple family, we already share our phone, watch, and Mac locations. Why not AirTags?

I’ve always been happy with the Hot/Cold slider + fan speed combo in my old truck. Takes half a second to move it a little in whatever temperature direction I want, and 4-5 fan speeds on the dial is completely adequate.

I mean, technically…

> You're basically creating an entirely new class of stalking, not to solve a problem, but to add a feature.

This is true, is there not some way to compromise? Like perhaps every once in a while, while X feet from the other partner's Apple-thingies the user gets prompted to make sure they want to allow them to track them still?

There's an option right in the screenshot "Don't notify me about this AirTag", I've never used it but I assume that does exactly what they want? don't warn me again about this particular tag for a while.

Still I agree it would be great to "share" airtags with other family members or even outsiders

> It's not supposed to be used as a pet tracker.

There's no issue with using it as a pet tracker. Its not Ideal for it, as the location updates aren't as fast as needed; we have a Fi tracker that notifies us when the dog goes outside "home", it can be put into lost dog mode and updates once a minute or faster (at a cost of battery life). But visiting an in-law our dog escaped the backyard. Neighbor found it and brought them inside for safety. Would have worked great in that case.

Why turn it off at all?