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My friends, family and co-workers all know that I’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on.
I’m absent-minded in a variety of infuriating ways, and this often manifests itself through the things I forget, leave behind or lose.
My wallet has spent time in the lost-and-found bins of all my favorite restaurants, coffee shops and stores. I’ve left my laptop in hotel rooms, left luggage on planes and have had to ask security guards to help me find my car in large parking lots.
My solution to the latter problem was to buy a bright green Honda that can be seen from space.
All of which is to say, Apple’s latest gadget was designed for people like me — and I didn’t need a bank loan to buy it.
The first Apple AirTags landed in the wild on Friday. They are now the cheapest hardware that Apple makes, priced at $29 each or $100 for four.
AirTags are slick disks of plastic and stainless steel that are about the size of a coat button which can be attached to just about anything to help you find them: key chains, purses and backpacks, suitcases and, according to YouTube, cats and dogs.
To be fair, AirTags can only be attached to things with an additional accessory. So tightly packed are the electronics inside these tiny things that Apple couldn’t spare a millimeter for a hole to accommodate straps, key rings or even a bit of fishing line.
An Apple product that requires you to buy accessories to make it fully functional? Big surprise. The fact that you can buy a leather AirTag luggage tag from Hermes for $449? Similarly astonishing.
Fortunately, countless third-party accessories are already available that actually cost less than the device they’re designed to hold.
AirTags integrate seamlessly into Apple’s ecosystem and its growing Find My location network. Now the same app that lets you look up the locations of your friends and family can also show your AirTags and the things they’re attached to on a map.
Like most Apple gear, they’re also incredibly simple to set up. An AirTag only needs to be held near your iPhone to connect. After a few taps to name it and attach it to your Apple account, you’re ready to go.
This also means AirTags won’t work if you use an Android smartphone.
If you lose your AirTagged keys, backpack or cat, you can use the Find My app to track it down. And Apple built a lot of impressive tech into the finding side of the equation.
If your lost item is somewhere in the same room, you can trigger an audible alarm on the AirTag and follow the sound. If it’s in the same house, a special ultrawideband chip in the AirTag allows your phone to display a simple arrow pointing in its direction, much like a compass points north.
And because AirTags and Apple’s Find My network connect through the millions of iPhones roaming the earth, your lost item will show up on the map if it’s across town or in another city. (If it’s in the middle of the Sahara, you may be out of luck.)
If you happen to find an AirTag, whether or not you use them, you can use your smartphone (Apple or Android) to check it for a message from the owner.
Finally, Apple has built-in features to prevent AirTags from being used to surreptitiously track people. If an AirTag has been away from its owner for more than three days, it will start to beep. And if you use an iPhone, it will automatically alert you if an AirTag that isn’t yours has been following you around.
AirTags are impressive — so much so that Tile, a longtime maker of item trackers, is rightfully worried that Apple is trying to take over its business.
As a longtime Tile user, though, I think Tile has plenty going for it.
Tile trackers work on both Apple and Android devices. Tile trackers track things both ways, so you can use your key chain Tile to find your phone. Tile trackers can be shared, so I can find my wife’s keys and vice versa.
I was surprised to find that the audible alarms on Tile trackers are much louder. And perhaps most important, Tile trackers come in a variety of shapes and sizes and don’t require an extra accessory to attach them to things.
If you’re deep into Apple’s ecosystem, AirTags are a solid choice. But I wouldn’t count out Tile yet.
Ryan Kawailani Ozawa covers science, technology and startups in Hawaii, and hosts a free and open local tech community chat room at HawaiiSlack.com.
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