A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

Theft-tracking is sort of an "off-label" use for AirTags, from Apple's perspective.

They'd rather make AirTags less generally useful than make them both more generally useful + open to stalking occurrences and lawsuits.

Agreed on the trade-off. And there are some absolutely 1000% winning use cases (lost cats, lost dogs, lost luggage). However, lets look at the constraints and outcomes:

- Me or other people need to be around (since airtags jump off others' devices)

This removes use cases like tracking lost marine goods, tracking lost drones, etc.

- Item being tracked has to be big enough to be worth the extra size/weight of the long life battery wrapper

This removes most common use cases like wallets, remotes, etc.

- Item being tracked has to be something you actually lose w/o wrongdoing. Makes sense for backpacks, purses, parked cars.

But, most capital equipment wouldnt be "lost" it would be stolen, so that is out.

https://ios.gadgethacks.com/how-to/20-surprisingly-practical...

> This removes most common use cases like wallets, remotes, etc.

I use an airtag for my wallet and apple remote.

https://ridge.com/products/carbon-case-for-airtag

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09G4PT3NJ

For 10 USD more than the carbon case, I prefer using the following item for my wallet. https://nomadgoods.com/products/tracking-card

I don't understand why AirTags being used for stalking would open Apple to lawsuits. If I buy a hammer and use it to attack someone, the manufacturer of the hammer isn't open to a lawsuit.

Of course I'm not saying Apple shouldn't try to protect people from stalkers using their control over their products, I just don't see why it would make Appld responsible if someone misused their products.

Were talking about the extended battery case, are you saying you put this giant thing in your wallet and on your remotes?! https://www.elevationlab.com/blogs/news/introducing-timecaps...

IANAL but the hammer doesnt include an ongoing service, but the AirTag is facilitated with a constant service from the manufacturer.

Also AirTags are meant for tracking personal possessions. Hammers aren't meant for murder. Murder is an off-label use of hammers.

If AirTags stopped notifying users they're being tracked, then AirTags would also be meant for tracking people.

Yes, I clearly linked containers that aren't the device in question. I don't see the need for the extended battery case in those use-cases.

I also don't see my cat wearing that thing either. Maybe a large dog.

But things like wallets, remotes, cats, dogs, are usually in your possession frequently and only lost for short periods of time before you notice.

Luggage would be a good use case, and possibly bikes and other large equipment. But I would opt for something more discreet vs a larger battery.

My wallet is rfid blocking, that wouldn't work.

Plus one less card space in it, even if it did work.

I bet it's less about lawsuits and more about reputational harm if every week there is a news story about a murder facilitated by an AirTag.

Conversely, people have been suing gun manufacturers after shootings basically forever.

Ya, but those cases have tended to get a bit more traction because the primary purpose of firearms is to kill and there are lots of things that gun makers could do to make it more difficult to kill people with them (like built in locking mechanisms). A little different than say, a hammer, which is not meant as a weapon of death.

> If AirTags stopped notifying users they're being tracked, then AirTags would also be meant for tracking people.

What?? That's like by not including a sound device that screams "look out, you're being murdered!" on every hammer when it's swung, manufacturers are saying their hammers are also intended for murder.

Now that Apple has this feature, sure, removing it might raise some eyebrows, but the theft tracking use-case is so obvious and useful that no judge would ever believe that Apple did this specifically to enable stalking.

Gun manufacturers could add pointless and customer-hostile complications to guns just like apple can add customer-hostile complications to airtags. The case against Apple is even stronger, because at least apple's complications have a chance of doing something useful, and Apple provides an ongoing service where firearm manufacturers do not.

There's also no reasonable standard by which you can claim guns are being made to murder people but AirTags are not being made to stalk people. A vanishingly small fraction of total sales ever goes towards either of these undesirable use cases.

The smart move here is to get your risk models in order and stop worrying about either of these things.