23 ms·

The AirPods location as shown on the map is not the actual location, it is the location of the phone that last reported “hearing” the signal from the AirPods.

The AirPods location as shown on the map is not the actual location, it is the location of the phone that last reported “hearing” the signal from the AirPods. When you are close to them and connected to them, the map will show your own location not the AirPods. This explains why the AirPods tracked the authors own location at times. Possibly also why the map showed the boys location. He was using Bluetooth so his phone was actively listening, and actively connected to the internet and due to this, the boys iPhone was quick to post it’s location when it heard the authors AirPods. Where as other people in the museum was not using their iPhones so their phones would not be actively listening or if they where would not upload the position in real-time.

fwlr 3y ago
Yes! Some may feel the author was excessively cautious but in this case it actually compensated for the author also not understanding exactly how Find My Device works, and the two cancelled out and resulted in the correct decisions being made! In trying to troubleshoot annoying “lost AirPods” notifications without turning off Find My Device, I ended up learning a bit about how the system seems to work. The way Find My Device works is that there’s a broad class of “child” devices like AirPods that basically only have the ability to say “hello, I’m <Apple ID/serial>” and perhaps the ability to say “help, I’m lost, my name is <Apple ID/serial>” - but crucially they do not have any kind of location data themselves. Then there’s a narrower class of “adult” devices (iPads, iPhones, and Mac) that have location data (GPS on iPads/iPhones, geolocated IP on Macs) and network connectivity. They have the ability to hear any child devices and report “I’m at this location, and I heard a [lost] child with this ID” to the central service, which can then report that information to the parent of that ID. (Incidentally, this let me figure out how to fix my spurious “lost device” notifications - I leave my old MacBook Air on, at my house, connected to wifi, to act as a “stay at home parent” device that can report on child devices, no issues since then.) If someone trusts the location dot too much and uses it to “find the thief”, there is a possibility they will end up instead accosting the iPhone-bearer who happens to be closest to their device. In the “lost child / responsible adult” analogy, this is sort of an adult reporting they saw a lost child in the museum and being accused of kidnapping the child themselves. (Seeing the same person associated with the device in multiple locations is a much stronger signal, of course.)
- MarkSweep 3y ago
  > I leave my old MacBook Air on, at my house, connected to wifi, to act as a “stay at home parent” device that can report on child devices, no issues since then. A solution that does not involve leaving a computer on all the time is to configure Find My to not report devices at certain locations. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212765 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212765
  - fwlr 3y ago
    I did try this method first and it achieved about an 80% reduction, still had a few issues. I don’t know what the Bluetooth range of AirPods is but my phone was apparently able to hear them from the end of the street and report that I’d left my AirPods about 100m from my house. Presumably Bluetooth doesn’t actually go that far and it’s just reporting “current location at the time it realizes it can’t hear the AirPods anymore”.
  - beaugunderson 3y ago
    I'm an edge case here. I live full-time on an RV, and whenever I move the RV I get the fun task of adding that new spot to the "trusted locations" for Find My. I expect to find out there's a limit to trusted locations at some point.
- afavour 3y ago
  This is true and also speaks to confusion around AirPods: second generation AirPod Pros are "adult devices" (or at least their case is) while all other generations are child devices.
  - aziaziazi 3y ago
    Indeed, the case is "adult device" ! > A new U1 chip enables Find My with Precision Finding for your case, so you can exactly locate it. You can also use Find My with proximity view if you lose track of your AirPods Pro https://www.apple.com/uk/airpods-pro/ https://www.apple.com/uk/airpods-pro/
dmm 3y ago
> Possibly also why the map showed the boys location. If it means even a slight chance of attracting unfounded vigilantism, mandatory participation in a poorly understood surveillance network seems like a pretty big downside associated with using an iphone.
- callesgg 3y ago
  It’s not mandatory. You have to explicitly enable participation. But most people probably do, as you yourself can’t use the location tracking, unless you opt in yourself.
  - dmm 3y ago
    Thanks. I misunderstood that.
  - TechBro8615 3y ago
    But you don't need to opt into the network to be a potential victim of a false geolocation. Just the fact it exists and lots of people use it is sufficient to create risk of someone accusing you of stealing their iProduct, even if you've never purchased anything from Apple.

fwlr 3y ago

Yes! Some may feel the author was excessively cautious but in this case it actually compensated for the author also not understanding exactly how Find My Device works, and the two cancelled out and resulted in the correct decisions being made! In trying to troubleshoot annoying “lost AirPods” notifications without turning off Find My Device, I ended up learning a bit about how the system seems to work. The way Find My Device works is that there’s a broad class of “child” devices like AirPods that basically only have the ability to say “hello, I’m <Apple ID/serial>” and perhaps the ability to say “help, I’m lost, my name is <Apple ID/serial>” - but crucially they do not have any kind of location data themselves. Then there’s a narrower class of “adult” devices (iPads, iPhones, and Mac) that have location data (GPS on iPads/iPhones, geolocated IP on Macs) and network connectivity. They have the ability to hear any child devices and report “I’m at this location, and I heard a [lost] child with this ID” to the central service, which can then report that information to the parent of that ID. (Incidentally, this let me figure out how to fix my spurious “lost device” notifications - I leave my old MacBook Air on, at my house, connected to wifi, to act as a “stay at home parent” device that can report on child devices, no issues since then.) If someone trusts the location dot too much and uses it to “find the thief”, there is a possibility they will end up instead accosting the iPhone-bearer who happens to be closest to their device. In the “lost child / responsible adult” analogy, this is sort of an adult reporting they saw a lost child in the museum and being accused of kidnapping the child themselves. (Seeing the same person associated with the device in multiple locations is a much stronger signal, of course.)

MarkSweep 3y ago
> I leave my old MacBook Air on, at my house, connected to wifi, to act as a “stay at home parent” device that can report on child devices, no issues since then. A solution that does not involve leaving a computer on all the time is to configure Find My to not report devices at certain locations. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212765 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212765
- fwlr 3y ago
  I did try this method first and it achieved about an 80% reduction, still had a few issues. I don’t know what the Bluetooth range of AirPods is but my phone was apparently able to hear them from the end of the street and report that I’d left my AirPods about 100m from my house. Presumably Bluetooth doesn’t actually go that far and it’s just reporting “current location at the time it realizes it can’t hear the AirPods anymore”.
- beaugunderson 3y ago
  I'm an edge case here. I live full-time on an RV, and whenever I move the RV I get the fun task of adding that new spot to the "trusted locations" for Find My. I expect to find out there's a limit to trusted locations at some point.
afavour 3y ago
This is true and also speaks to confusion around AirPods: second generation AirPod Pros are "adult devices" (or at least their case is) while all other generations are child devices.
- aziaziazi 3y ago
  Indeed, the case is "adult device" ! > A new U1 chip enables Find My with Precision Finding for your case, so you can exactly locate it. You can also use Find My with proximity view if you lose track of your AirPods Pro https://www.apple.com/uk/airpods-pro/ https://www.apple.com/uk/airpods-pro/

dmm 3y ago

> Possibly also why the map showed the boys location. If it means even a slight chance of attracting unfounded vigilantism, mandatory participation in a poorly understood surveillance network seems like a pretty big downside associated with using an iphone.

callesgg 3y ago
It’s not mandatory. You have to explicitly enable participation. But most people probably do, as you yourself can’t use the location tracking, unless you opt in yourself.
- dmm 3y ago
  Thanks. I misunderstood that.
- TechBro8615 3y ago
  But you don't need to opt into the network to be a potential victim of a false geolocation. Just the fact it exists and lots of people use it is sufficient to create risk of someone accusing you of stealing their iProduct, even if you've never purchased anything from Apple.