Originally published at: Google Raises Privacy Bar with Its Crowdsourced Tracking Service - TidBITS
Google’s new Find My Device network works nearly identically to Apple’s Find My network with a few exceptions: Google’s design offers more anti-stalking and privacy features than Apple.
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It seems Google and Apple are working together on this. So I have to ask: what’s in it for Apple? Why would they have any interest in helping Google add to Android something that in iOS world has been working well for years already and has also been very popular. Is Apple collaborating on this standard because they see it as a means not to get into hot water with privacy/stalking issues? Or is the real benefit that now a bazillion cheap Android devices will also aid in showing us where our AirTags are? I realize around here where iDevice density is very high, it works great. Probably not so much in a place like Spain where there are few iPhones and even fewer iPads or Macs. Will AirTags there now benefit from so many more devices being able to aid in tracking AirTag location?
Google and Apple are working together (along with tracking device makers that work on Google and Apple Find My Device/Find My networks), but they aren’t collaborating on the basic feature set, which requires ownership of a given platform Android or Apple. So that’s where the lock-in and money is. So far and maybe never will you be able to buy a Find My item or Find My Network item and have interoperability, so you have to be part of one ecosystem or the other.
Where they two are working together is only on the anti-stalking initiative which provides alerts across ecosystems and a consistent behavior in tracking devices about when they make sound, etc.
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I will be interested to see if the Google Find My Device can locate a supported tag device in the absence of wifi or cell service. I have lost things along a trail and while traveling in places without connectivity. I have two Apple tags for our key rings and I’ve tested it in the wild and an iPhone cannot locate a tag without service being available. I had bluetooth turned on. I can think of several situations where I’d want to find my keys when I don’t have any service or wifi.
I suspect that not tracking unless there are multiple Android devices nearby is potentially a problem. Say you are out hiking and drop something with a tracker in it. In all probability, there will be very few phones of any kind, and if an Android happens to pass by, it seems that it will not pass on the tracking information.
(Digression: what happens if an iPhone passes an Airtag while there is no phone reception? Does the iPhone save it up and transmit it when there is reception, or does it just ignore it?)
Not tracking at home is also a problem. Mostly, when I am looking for something, it is at home. “Where are my car keys?”
I think the aggregation threshold could be an issue if you are tracking things in more remote locations or using Air Tags for things like pets (I know its not recommended). I have one on my dog, and of course the dog moves, but if it runs off and only goes past singular people with only one phone on them, with Google approach doesn’t look like it will report a location, unless I have misunderstood.
Not tracking at home is also a problem. Mostly, when I am looking for something, it is at home. “Where are my car keys?”
That’s a related, but different feature. When you are actively looking for something, you use the app on your phone to actively turn on local location tracking. It’s a direct communication between the device and your phone.
I think the multiple-device threshold only applies to the automatic, remote relaying of the device’s location to central servers. I would also imagine that there’s some sort of exception to the threshold for devices that are registered to you, versus devices registered to other people.
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