AirTag Teardown Part One: Yeah, This Tracks | Hacker News Reader

AirTag Teardown Part One: Yeah, This Tracks

ifixit.com

213 pointstosh199 comments

The lack of loophole was disorienting, but then I went and looked up how they want you to attach it, and the hangtag accessories look so pretty https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apple-introduces-airt... -- things like the appearance and the sound quality really show a commitment to making polished products rather than practical ones. I've been fairly negative on Apple for a few years and they still need to pull bigger rabbits out of their hat until I completely reverse that, but it's really impressive that they've turned a Tile into a status symbol.

It's hilarious to a certain extent that they built the thing smaller than all the competition and bulk it up with a wad of leather anyhow.

> It's hilarious to a certain extent that they built the thing smaller than all the competition and bulk it up with a wad of leather anyhow.

That's essentially how I feel when I see the "Our thinnest iPhone ever" slide knowing that 95% of iPhone owners put it in a bulky case. That said, that's not unique to Apple and the phone is at least usable without a case.

It's not like the choice is "thick and doesn't need a case or thin and needs a case". Even if the phone was thicker, people would be using cases if they bought it, right?

Probably not everyone. But for me, after spending $1400 I’m putting it in a case. My Xs Max is nearly two and a half years old now and I took it out of the case for it’s scheduled cleaning and after wiping it down and getting the built up pocket crud out of the crevices where the case and phone meet, its like brand new.

I’m hoping I can get at least another year out of this thing. Battery is excellent. iOS doesn’t seem slow at all.

The reason for putting it in a case is not the price tag. People buy 100k cars and don't cover the outer surfaces with protective plastic.

The problem is Apple builds the phone in a fragile manner, prone to breaking and scratching. It's true of other phones too.

I distinctly remember people at Nokia laughing at how the first iPhone didn’t stand up to any of their robustness tests. Obviously they were wrong and people bought them (due to the fit and finish of the software, not robustness or battery life) and the first iPhone feels like it was much more durable than the latest generations with their protruding cameras, glass on two sides and edge to edge screen.

Yeah the new phones are laughably non-robust. Use an iPhone without a case or protective film for a year and I guarantee you there will be micro scratches on the back glass.

They don't design the phone to be used without a case. People use cases because of that, not because of the price tag.

Speaking personally; I bought a iPhone 12 mini near launch, got a nice leather case for it because I dislike the camera bump but still managed to get a scratch (which I can feel) on the screen a mere week in.

I’m pretty careful with my phone too, has its own pocket doesn’t mix with anything. I’m actually quite displeased; especially as scratch resistance was a touted feature.

EDIT: never mind. It was drop resistance. Not scratch resistance.

Who cares about micro (or even macro) scratches on the back? It’s the front you look at.

> People buy 100k cars and don't cover the outer surfaces with protective plastic

Yes, they do. Look up Paint Protection Film. Ceramic coating is also very commonly used to protect the car's paint, plastics, and glass.

Is it as common as putting a case on your phone? I doubt it. My point is that Apple and others can easily make far more durable phones for the price they ask, and not need literally everyone to use a case.

I'm not sure how common it is in general, but for people who care about their car's paint it is common, and I imagine people who buy $100k+ cars are probably the type that have their cars detailed regularly by a professional.

Doesn't matter though. It's not in phone manufacturers' best interests to make durable phones. They need to make trendy phones, as that's what the majority have voted for (with their wallets). And Apple users have it the worst, as the lock-in leaves them with no alternative phone manufacturers).

Even with protective cases many flagship phones won't be very useable after 2 years anyway, as the battery life decreases, the OS and apps do more and more things, and flash storage starts to fail/slow.

> Even with protective cases many flagship phones won't be very useable after 2 years anyway, as the battery life decreases, the OS and apps do more and more things, and flash storage starts to fail/slow.

My iPhone disagrees with this. I've used it pretty heavily for over two years now and it's still going strong. I see no reason why I can't get at least 3 out of it. I figure I make it to fall of 2022 and it'll be nearly 4 years old before I replace it.

You don't hold a car in your hand and stare at it all day. But also, cars are mostly painted with a clear coat that can be buffed or sanded and buffed to remove imperfections.

I want the shock absorber of my $1000 device to be changeable, not built into the phone so that when I go to sell it, it looks like a banged up Nokia brick with shredded rubber bumpers with a faded scratched screen I can barely read anymore.

> I’m hoping I can get at least another year out of this thing.

A year should be no problem. I just replaced my iPhone 6s and Apple Watch 0 in February. If I hadn’t decided I wanted the NFC functionality I would have simply replaced the battery.

I don’t bother with a case because it’s often simply my pocket, which is a case I guess.

> after spending $1400

Damn, I feel silly, I have bought 9 phones over the past 3 years and still haven't spent that kind of money...

I put my phone in a case so that when I drop it, the corner of the case takes the brunt of the force instead of the phone itself. Unless the phone had a floating edge around it (essentially, a case), I would still need one.

(Yes, it’s still possible to drop my phone face down on a rock or something, but most of the times I’ve broken a phone screen, it’s been a crack in the glass emanating from a corner. Which makes sense, given the physics of the things.)

Me? No. I get a case because of the fscking camera bump (though with the latest model, it's more tumor than bump). I just want my phone to lay flat.

It's like a wobbly table until you bend the knee and shell out a few bucks for a case. Same thing with removing the ports: can't charge your phone and listen to music at the same time if you are a wired charger user and wired headphone listener. That privilege previously enjoyed by default on every single cell phone ever made is now reserved to customers who purchase wireless charging or wireless headphone accessories. Shell out a few more bucks on junk you didn't need a generation ago, or deal with a sub par experience out of the box, as always with Apple these days.

I disagree. With modern materials, the thinness is the root of durability compromises. I've used my Xperia XZ1 compact for several years without a case. I've dropped it on concrete floors, sat on it, and used it in the mud. There're some chips in the paint, but the fiberglass body underneath is fine. Any scratches on the Gorilla Glass 5 are barely visible.

My old phones with cheap poly-carbonate backs(cracks easily) and thin GG3(cracks,scratches are apparent) were fragile in comparison. The material science has improved with modern phones, but manufacturers choose to make fragile phones.

You don't need thick overmoulding and port covers to make a phome durable without a case. The materials are strong enough on the high end phones. The problem is that when you make the glass thinner and exposed at the corners, it will crack with much less impact. The overall thinness means less flexural rigidity (rigidity is proportional to thickness cubed), you can snap a modern phone with your hands. Cheap new phones get it even worse. They use flimsier materials to cram a better SoC in, and still are rarely waterproof.

Some comments below suggests cases are for protection. I'd argue most cases are bought first & foremost a fashion accessory, then a safety device. Think wallets or watches.

Back when phones were built to survive the outside world without a case, I never put cases on my phones.

The whole Nextel and Nokia and Blackberry era, not a one. They looked a bit worn from a few years each in my pocket with my keys, but they all worked fine, and they'd all survive a drop to the floor.

Today the only phone I'd trust to survive a naked drop would be a Unihertz Titan, but until there's an AOSP ROM for it, I'm not trusting it with my data. So, cases on everything.

There's also a line of phones made by CAT, the construction company, that looks pretty durable. I've been thinking about getting one just to have fun with the thermal camera.

I like those phones and never had one (either CAT or third party) fail... the issue is that the processor / RAM setup is always a little on the weak side and OS updates are a problem.

I'd probably buy my first ever iPhone if Apple came out with a ruggedized version of the current iPhone SE.

Yeah, the os updates is why I've been holding off. Basically just have to accept you won't get any

I mean, to be honest, I didn't pay a lot of my original one (non-CAT) but it's on Android 8.0.1 forever... which isn't exactly a bad version.

I wish Android would decouple the device drivers from the kernel space kinda like a desktop OS so your manufacturer could just supply their drivers and you could upgrade the OS at will... a man can dream.

The desktop OSes that use Linux do not have the device drivers decoupled from the kernel. Apple also builds these drivers into Darwin (hence Nvidia GPUs breaking on MacOS), Windows (on x86-64 only) is the only platform that has a semi-stable ABI for device drivers.

Microsoft has dedicated many developer years to supporting said API, and all the kernel panics caused by said drivers.

Sony[1] has a ruggedized version of their flagship with all the same fancy specs. You might not like the price however.

https://electronics.sony.com/mobile/smartphone/professional-...

I'd pay it gladly if I knew I could get OS updates beyond 2 years... my issue with current flagships is unless you go Apple, you'll be buying a new one every few years.

Sonim too. Got to play with one for a client. It wasn’t pretty, I seem to recall it ran a pretty crusty version of Android, but damn was that thing tough. And the speaker! Oh boy... the app I was helping with had to do with personal safety, and if the volume was turned all the way up that thing was LOUD!

Back when phones were built to survive the outside world without a case

You mean: Back when phones had screens made of plastic instead of glass. And yes, sure, that does make them more likely to survive a drop, but also means the screen becomes a scratch magnet. That of course is the right compromise when the screen is tiny and the pixels are enormous, but not so much when it’s the other way around.

One of the worst ideas was putting glass on the back, doubling the chance of cracking it.

I think the nokia lumia line handled this pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf1fRu9YgfE

My lumia 800 went through hell (including being dropped from a third floor balcony onto asphalt) but still looked good.

Until about 2013, I didn't use a case on any of my (Android) smart phones, and never broke the glass screen. I know I dropped them several times. The worst that would happen was the battery door would fly off. I started using a case when I got a phone that was thinner, and had a glued-in battery. I think having a removable battery actually makes phones tougher in a sense, because I the case of a drop there's an place for the force of impact to go without causing permanent damage.

Well that's just completely wrong.

You never lived in that time where people had their Nokia phones in those leather zip cases which completely covered the device clipped to their waist? Or the fact that many Nokia phones had removable front and back cases that you could replace yourself?

I definitely remember my screen being scratched.

If the back wasn’t slick glass you’ll get more people without cases.

> Even if the phone was thicker, people would be using cases if they bought it, right?

People started using cases for most part after the iPhone came out. Older phones were almost never used with a case, except perhaps for use case requiring a ruggedized enclosure.

I remember some people, especially elderly, putting their (dumb) phones into those protective plastic cases. The kind where you'd push the buttons through the plastic. That was looong before the iPhone came out and when something was considered a smartphone if it ran Symbian.

BlackBerry phones had those holster cases, and I remember my dad's first cell phone (a Nokia, around year 2000) had this fabric and clear plastic case that the antenna pokes out of (like the sibling comment describes). Even though that phone was indestructible, with big rubber buttons and a plastic screen.

It's the thinnest iphone ever that hasn't sat flat on a table for years. Touch the screen and it wobbles like a bar table needing some coasters under a leg. Apple purposely designs their cases to be flush with the camera bump, knowing that for most users, the phone will just live in a case.

It's kind of ridiculous to build that baked in expectation for more accessory buying directly into your device, but I guess that's modern design principles. Extract more dollar, and leave you with the equivalent of a wobbly table if you don't buy in.

I have an 11 pro without a case on it and just tried replicating what you're describing and I can't do it.

It pivots at most 1-2mm laterally to the left when i'm tapping hard on the left side of the screen which is barely noticeable. When I tap normally (a bit softer) or swipe it doesn't even move.

I'm no fanboy but i'm amazed that out of all the things you could critique about Apple it would be this one.

I can't believe you're serious. Since the iPhone X, a screen replacement has been such a significant percentage of the cost it's not worth it. And if you damage the back glass, Apple will just replace the phone. Before the X, I was a bare phone user. After that, there is no way I would leave my phone exposed. The only way I could justify that danger would be if I could swallow a $1500 expense every other week. Why? Fully glass phones slide off of everything. I'm sure there are HNers who can do that but I can't.

Why don't you just get applecare plus? Getting a case has never even crossed my mind, I can just go replace my phone for free whenever I want.

What are you talking about? It's not free, there is a deductible. And it's not anytime you want. It's a maximum of 2 incidences per year. So you pay $200 a year plus $30 for cracking your screen. Or $150 for loss or theft.

I'm guessing you could get a third party screen repair for less than $230.

Oh, Apple stores will waive the deductible if you ask. They don't even try to charge it if your device was originally sold in the EU.

I've replaced two iphones in the past month, didn't pay a deductible for either.

If you break your phone more than twice a year, a regular phone case probably isn't going to cut it.

>I'm guessing you could get a third party screen repair for less than $230.

Yes, but not 4 third party screen repairs and definitely not even one replacement phone. I've had two total losses in my 2 year applecare period, once the phone was damaged on both sides by a police baton and once by a falling dumbbell. A normal phone case wouldn't have been enough in either of these situations.

For 2 years of applecare, the price would be double. Still, if you frequently break it twice a year, then I guess apple care is your best bet. But I don't usually use a case at all and I guess I'm just not that rough on them.

The entire paradigm is broken by design if you have to buy it and slap it into a case. With first party engineering, they could make a phone that doesn't need a case..it would be bulkier, maybe less pretty, but better than any third party case could ever be, and a better result than buying the pretty phone and slapping a big ugly case on it, because they put their resources into designing the product properly for its intended end use instead of leaving the end user to crappy hacks to cover up inadequate design.

Personally, I just won't go there. If it's too expensive not to put a case on, it's too expensive for me to own.

My iPhone 12 mini laying on the back side wobbles as hell when touching the screen even with a minor force. Not usable to type that way. Has anyone produced some kind of a sticker for the backside to make it even?

On my SE 2 tapping almost the entire right half of the screen gets it to wobble.

> That's essentially how I feel when I see the "Our thinnest iPhone ever" slide knowing that 95% of iPhone owners put it in a bulky case

I was in the same boat until and I dropped my phone and break the back, which is ridiculously expensive to fix.

I use a case now, which only takes 10 bucks to replace if broken. It’s not as pretty as a naked phone, but it’s practical.

I've had this attitude before, but I must say, the recent iPhones at least (iPhone 11 in my case) are ridiculously resistant to damage.

Mine is not in a case and regularly has scary-looking falls, but there's almost no-scratch. Only on the edges of the aluminum body you can see the paint scratched off in some places.

I've found that the added bulk of a case makes me drop my phone much more frequently.

yesterday i was holding my phone with protective glass, rubber case, all wired to an external battery and laughed at larger than a nokia 3310 monstrosity. Modern times.

I know it means nothing but I'm in the 5%. I've never had a case on my iPhone and I've owned every other generation since the original (I always skip generations for my devices since they started doing the incremental S versions). I prefer things without cases and the AirTags are going to be no exception. I'm going to throw them into a pocket or put them into an already existing spot so I like that it's thin.

What are you going to track without using some kind of holder?

Personally, I only bought one AirTag (along with an Apple leather keychain, for my keys). I don't generally lose items large enough to have some kind of pocket/holder for an AirTag (e.g. I don't ever lose my backpack which has a zippered compartment to hold random junk).

Wow I didn’t believe this stat, but sure enough 87% of people use cases on their iPhones. I didn’t know people were so paranoid, I love my iPhone 12 Pro Max because it feels perfect in my hand despite being so large. I feel like a case would ruin that.

I wonder if it’s paranoia or actual clumsiness or maybe just salespeople that get people to buy cases. I’ve owned an iPhone since the 3G and have dropped my naked phone exactly once, my 6 Plus, which was still usable for years after that.

Glass is much more slippery than a plastic or leather case. I’ve cracked a caseless phone’s screen after it slipped off a slightly off-level table. I always use leather cases now and no longer have the problem of my phone randomly slipping off of surfaces or even falling out of my greasy hands.

It boggles my mind that phone makers don't use a grippy surface on the phones. The sleek surfaces look great in marketing photos but make for horrible usability.

I use Android and once a phone is nearing the 3/4 mark of it's useful life, I pull the cases off because at that point the smaller/sleeker form factor helps offset the annoying performance degradation. With my Nexus 5, which had a grippy back, the screen is still intact to this day. My Nexus 6p, which has a metallic back, slipped out of my hand the very first day I took the case off and the screen shattered.

My new strategy is to just buy a mid-low range android at the end of the sales cycle for a steep discount. I got last years Moto G Power model for about 40 bucks. Once I get about half way through it's useful life (~2 years), I am going to take the case off and I am going to scuff it up with sand paper and then spray on some truck liner or other grippy surfacing agent.

The Tile is much more compact than the kitted out AirTag. Shame that Apple had to pander to the twin gods of accessories margin and fashion.

> Shame that Apple had to pander to the twin gods of accessories margin and fashion

I feel like that's...what Apple is?

If you don't like it, that's fine, and they have lots of more-utilitarian competitors in every space they operate. I personally don't currently use any Apple products; I'm not really the target market either.

Well the Apple product is technologically superior since they browbeat their iPhone installed base into surveilling AirTags. This is what is so infuriating about Apple — they have excellent engineering and are often the best product in the market, but you then have to buy into their whole ethos as well.

Are you criticizing the fact that Apple brought a tracking device to market utilizing the best tracking network? Wat.

It... isn't, though? There's a side-by-side comparison photo of the naked devices in the linked article, and I'm fairly sure from eyeballing it that the AirTag + the smallest of the accessories (the Belkin one [1]) is still smaller than the Tile.

[1]: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HNPR2ZM/A/belkin-secure-h...

The latest tile is thinner and more flat. You could probably fit it in a wallet but the round shape of the airtag makes it a bit more awkward. Still, I'm sure people will make it work.

You're talking about a very specific tile product. It's also not got a user replaceable battery and has other concessions to meet that size constraint

Or, said another way: isn't it great that Apple gives you the choice of smaller with no loophole if you don't need it?

It doesn't matter though. The AirTags' tracking (on a map) actually works, while Tiles' doesn't.

A little off-topic, but can an artistic person or graphic designer help me to understand why every airtag in Apple's literature with the Apple logo has that two-color (light gray, dark gray) scheme with a not-exactly-straight line dividing the colors [1]? It seems like an odd design choice.

EDIT: Ha! Thanks for the push. I would have never seen it. My eyes are broken I guess. It truly looks to me like they are two-toned gray, even after the explanation.

1: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/accessories/st...

I think it’s a single color but shaded due to its dome shape.

The tags with the icons are white.

https://i.imgur.com/ZlvXsaR.jpg

The tags with the Apple logo are a mirror finish.

https://i.imgur.com/QaVobYc.jpg

The sharp line isn't part of the design, it's just a minimalist way of showing a highly reflective material. The sharper the line, the sharper the reflections in the surface. The line is curved because the surface of the tag is curved (e.g. you can see how the straight window is curved in the above image). If the tag was a flat surface, then it would be a straight line.

They have two sides. One silver, one white.

> and the hangtag accessories look so pretty

I'm going to buy AirTags and 100% disagree. I will likely print a complete enclosure because the accessories they sell are expensive, look stupid and will still scratch the tags up like mad (will I resell them? probably not, but still).

People debate if Apple is about primarily hardware or software but I posit their forte is marketing. They make good products but also consistently beat out superior competition by engineering desirability.

They're a fashion company, which happens to produce hardware and software. A bit like Riot Games is an art company which happens to produce League of Legends (like Valve / TF2 and hats/collectibles before them).

Sheesh, those are costly. $35 usd is more than two weeks worth of groceries, two months of a world of Warcraft subscription, and about the same price as any of Affinity's products. For the AirTag, I'd admit that it seems sophisticated enough to warrant it. But the loop to affix it!?

Keeping your food budget at $2.50 a day is impressive. Do you do a lot of bulk food prep?

I used to get by on $3-3.50 a day, but that was back in my lean years.

It's a rough average, but mostly oats, coffee, nuts for the oats, pasta, deli meat 1-3 times a week. Maybe if I dug into it a little more it would come out a bit higher, but for things I actually buy as groceries the number is relatively low, and I suppose that's how I've managed so far without work for over a year.

Edit: Worth noting that USD is not my home currency, which would convert to a bit over $40. I imagine $35 USD would go very very far for many other people outside the U.S

I mean, you can also buy a holder from Hermes for $350.

The belkin one is only $13, and I'm sure there will be some from China on Amazon for $2-5 before long.

Fair enough I suppose, but it still seems a bit excessive. For a first-party example, you could maybe get approx. 30 keychains or a Macbook Air.

Are 1st-party accessories ever the cheapest option, for any brand?

Who was suggesting they would be?

I'd also argue that it's only an accessory if the product either came with it or is complete without it. The iPad has $100 cases and so on, but I've never really felt the need for one It also had a $30 charger, but it came with one. An extra would be accessory, and without it the product wouldn't really work.

> But why bother putting a real driver in here at all? Magnets not only add weight, they take up a lot of space. Looks like one corner Apple refused to cut on this tiny disk is sound quality.

I find it fascinating what tradeoffs are decided upon. Apple is arguably the best luxury brand in the world - and this is why.

Apple’s unique ethos is technology as a means for creative expression. That’s why they’ve excelled in font rendering, colour accuracy, sound fidelity, and input-lag.

I think this value came from Steve Jobs, and I hope they never lose it because it imbues Apple with real human spirit. They’re more than just another profit-seeking company.

> That’s why they’ve excelled in font rendering, colour accuracy, sound fidelity, and input-lag.

That'll be why mac laptops connect to bluetooth speakers using the worst default settings for sound fidelity so it sounds like a dying frog.

And the input lag is quite terrible when the machine is under any load.

I'm sure that will be fixed once Apple inevitably starts building their own Bluetooth chipsets.

> you’ll have to wait until 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple-designed_processors#W_se...

* for computers.

From what I've heard, their chipsets don't have the same problems as the ones they use in macs.

The M1 Macs are essentially iPhone/iPad hardware. The latest iPad Pro shares the same M1 chip, and I imagine it shares most other components as well.

Right, but the wifi+bt chip is still Broadcom.

Rumor has it that this might be changing soon.

Input lag on an iPhone or an iPad is best in class. The Mac leaves much to be desired.

I have never had an issue with Bluetooth on the Mac. Maybe there’s issues if you’re doing audio recording on the headset, but that’s a limitation of bluetooth 4 and would be similar on Linux or Windows.

My Linux laptop likes to negotiate HSP (low quality but with audio recording) over HSDP (high quality) with my Bose QC35s, but the Mac is quite happy to dynamically switch as needed.

I've tried to use the mic on my airpods with my windows desktop once -- Bluetooth 4 mic output _definitely_ sounds like what he's describing. It's godawful and certainly an effective way to mete out punishment to those vendors you dislike via conference call. It's an immediate headache.

Default bitpools on mac are very low for audio ime. To fix it, you can run the following:

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/5rfdj6/pro_tip_signi...

> They’re more than just another profit-seeking company.

I do like Apple but be real: this is how they garner their profits.

This is your brain on consumerism.

> That’s why they’ve excelled in font rendering

Not sure about the past, but without subpixel antialiasing they pretty much have the worst font rendering now.

Can you elaborate?

Right? All it's missing is a Posted from my iPhone footer

Basically, they assume you’re using a retina quality (aka HiDPI) display where each virtual or abstract pixel maps to four physical pixels in the display.

For example, you have a 27” 4K display, but set the resolution to 1920x1080 in System Preferences.

Mapping each virtual pixel to four physical pixels lets you render curves really crisply. However, on non-HiDPI where you don’t have pixel doubling, you have to use sub-pixel rendering to approximate curves.

One technique is playing with slightly shading adjacent pixels so that at a distance curves appear to be smoothed out. But for some technical reasons, Apple dropped support for sub-pixel rendering. It was too hard to do and the future is HiDPI anyway.

Doesn’t this only cause issues on non-HiDPI screens.

Is the magnet strong enough to stick the tag to ferromagnetic metals?

Weakly, yes. Enough to hold its own mass at rest, but I don't think it would work with any type of acceleration. It will stick nicely to a neodymium magnet.

... Which I assume also mutes it?

I'd expect sticking the tag to some ferromagnetic surface, such as a fridge door, by the magnet to have about the same effect as gluing the tag to that same surface would which I would guess would be none.

Generally in a permanent magnetic speaker the permanent magnet is solidly affixed to the speaker housing.

The part that actually moves to make sound (the diaphragm) has a coil attached to it. The signal is sent through that coil, which produces a variable magnetic field that interacts with the fixed magnetic field of the permanent magnet.

This interaction produces a force that moves the coil, and thus also moves the diaphragm producing sound.

You could probably design a speaker where the coil is fixed and the magnet is attached to the diaphragm, but that is generally not done. You want the moving parts to be as light as possible so that it doesn't take a lot of energy to rapidly change their motion.

Consider a speaker playing an N Hz sine wave--it has to change direction 2N times per second, and between each direction change you want it to move far enough to move enough air to for the sound to be easily audible.

If the moving part is too heavy you would need a lot more force to accelerate it enough to move far enough to move enough air in the short time you have in order to reach a specified loudness, and then it would take a lot of energy to quickly change direction and do the opposite movement. Hence, the heavy magnet is fixed and the light coil moves the diaphragm).

Microphones are similar. There are moving coil microphones, but I don't recall seeing moving magnet microphones.

You might think it would also be the same with phonograph cartridges, but there you do find both moving magment and moving coil designs [1].

[1] https://www.audio-technica.com/en-us/support/audio-solutions...

Thanks for that great message!

The case I was thinking about was specific to the airtag. In this case a fixed voice coil moves a small permanent magnet attached to the diaphragm rather than the other way around (according to iFixit, quote below). So maybe a rare earth magnet oriented the right way could prevent the magnet from moving. There’s an air gap so it will have to wait until I can do an experiment.

Note from iFixit:

> Did you notice the “button” on the underside of the cover? That’s not a clickable button, like the Mate and SmartTag have, but rather the magnet we saw earlier in the X-ray. It sits right inside the donut-shaped logic board, nested into a coil of copper to form a speaker. You read that right—the AirTag’s body is essentially a speaker driver. Power is sent to the voice coil, which drives the magnet mounted to the diaphragm—in this case, the plastic cover where the battery lives—which makes the sounds that lead you to your lost luggage.

Nope

It will also make them better hidden microphones :) http://in.bgu.ac.il/en/Pages/news/eaves_dropping.aspx

What are the practical ramifications of Apple harnessing every existing iPhone as an AirTag discovery device in the Find My network? (I think it's awful from a privacy and device-ownership standpoint, but let's leave that aside.)

For instance, because physics is real, it must take some amount of battery power & data transfer to collect information about nearby AirTags. Suppose I walk into Disneyland on a summer weekend with an iPhone. The place is going to be full of AirTags. Assumedly my iPhone will be very busy reporting on their location. Hour by hour, how does that workload compare to the stuff I ask my phone to do for me (e.g., receive text messages, download mail)? Will it run down the battery / chew up bandwidth caps in any significant way?

At first glance, I'd say the resource consumption is actually going to be basically negligible. The Bluetooth and GPS radios would probably be on anyway, and the packets flow through the air anyway, so just making a note of the IDs you see, batching them, and sending that every hour or so, is not going to be very heavy.

Are the iPhones always tracking and reporting? Or are they just watching passively for the devices reported lost and only reporting the location to Apple of your own AirTags. The latter seems far more sensible. The battery cost of this is fairly trivial. Your phone is already capturing its location and reporting for FindMy. The incremental cost of attaching the AirTag’s location is minimal. To monitor BLE for a bunch of addresses is also minimal cost that’s typically predominantly done within the BT chip to avoid waking the SoC. At first glance there are some details that are unclear here in terms of how they scale this. For example, at Apple scale, the total size of lost AirTags is quite large, larger than what you can typically offload to a BLE chip. Similarly, the privacy protection features mean that BLE addresses rotate so just passively scanning wouldn’t be sufficient. My bet though is that that’s the work that was done - offloading all of this to the BLE chip in ways that are friendly to the HW capabilities. It’s also entirely possible they worked with their BT supplier to add the necessary low-level hooks to make that perform well and preserve privacy.

I would say those AirTags will be with the iPhones of their respective owners. Mine report as “With you” so perhaps they don’t advertise themselves in this state. The phone will be frequently updating its own location to Find My anyway so no extra power draw.

However if you’re walking by a set of left luggage lockers or through some similar environment where lots of AirTags not with their owner then there would indeed be some overhead. If you work in baggage handling in an airport would probably be telling. This all depends on the frequency which the AirTag reports itself and the frequency where your iPhone listens out. I suspect the impact would be negligible considering the power draw of the U1 in the AirTag is of order the power draw that the phone must commit.

> Mine report as “With you” so perhaps they don’t advertise themselves in this state.

So you know for certain that AirTags have multiple broadcast states (e.g., "with me" vs. not)? Apple's description makes it sound like they only have one state:

"Your AirTag sends out a secure Bluetooth signal that can be detected by nearby devices in the Find My network." [1]

[1] https://www.apple.com/airtag/

The air tag just broadcasts location, the ‘with you’ state is generated within Find My iPhone, recognizing that the airbag is in the same location as your phone. That, and signal strength for locating the device.

The AirTag transmits every 2 seconds. The iPhone should scan every 2 minutes for 2 seconds in order to capture the AirTag. BLE scanning costs about ~20mW. So the average power consumption is 20mW * (2sec / 120sec) = 0.3mW.

Over an entire day, it's 7mWh. The iPhone 12 battery is 10000mWh.

Conclusion: it's neglibile.

It's the principle: other people's tags get to commandeer resources from 'my phone' without me giving permission. Unless somewhere in the iPhone fine print it say something like "by using an iPhone, you are implicitly agreeing to become part of Apple's Global BLE Network" --- well, if not that, I'm not sure how Apple gets away with this.

It also helps find your phone if you loose it. So everyone wins.

Yes, and... you are 'automatically opted in' and you have to disable this if you do not want to opt in via Settings->Apple ID->Find My->Find My iPhone->Find My network (That is pretty darn buried IMHO, but not germaine).

I'm actually quite shocked folks on here do not appreciate that the 'default' is opted-in, rather than not. When you own an Apple iPhone or iPad, you are part of Apple's network, and some of 'your' product is used to be in service of Apple's services. It's not like the requests to send 'user data' back to an app provider 'to help improve the experience' --- it's you Will send data back to Apple because that is the default -- and most people will surely not know the Settings->Apple ID->Find My->Find My iPhone->Find My network seequence.

Does this not seem somewhat fascistic? For the record, I have 2 iPads, and also for the record, I'm an Apple alum -- I have nothing but goodwill for the Company, however, this seems, to me, quite shady. (Downvoters, I'm expressing an opinion. Not polluting HN's polite discourse.)

> Any iOS, iPadOS or macOS device with “offline finding” enabled in Find My settings can act as a “finder device”.

https://support.apple.com/en-nz/guide/security/sec6cbc80fd0/...

Open the Settings app and search for "Find My". You'll find the setting. Or follow this: Settings->Apple ID->Find My->Find My iPhone->Find My network

There's some explanation as to what it does and you'll be able to opt out if you don't like it. (Though you won't even see the "Find My network" setting if you had "Find My" disabled anyway)

Would it be more if we consider the radio boot time to send a tx, and the amount of bytes sent to apples server? Also what happens if I'm at the air port with 100 air tags in range? I know they try to piggy back the data transmissions but now we are counting on apple's software having no bugs.

Reporting this data home also costs power.

It's rather pathetic how Apple restricts user's right to use full capabilities of their devices (like restricting running apps in the background) to 'increase their battery life' while simultaneously be perfectly fine to use that power for their own benefit.

I wonder can a user disable this airtag reporting feature if he doesn't own a single airtag and doesn't want to participate in this surveillance network?

You can disable it from the Find My settings for iCloud in your phone.

Limiting background execution is annoying, but I'm not sure if you understand how much battery an app running in the background can consume when compared to something like this.

I am not so sure you understand how well I am aware.

> I think it's awful from a privacy and device-ownership standpoint, but let's leave that aside.

Why is that so?

> Communication with the Find My network is end-to-end encrypted so that only the owner of a device has access to its location data, and no one, including Apple, knows the identity or location of any device that helped find it.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apple-introduces-airt...

In case you care about details: https://support.apple.com/en-nz/guide/security/sec60fd770ba/... https://support.apple.com/en-nz/guide/security/secd4ab33e5c/...

I'm not sure how the e2ee works out when using Find My in the browser, but that's a different topic, I guess.

edit:

> This entire interaction is end-to-end encrypted, anonymous, and designed to be battery and data efficient, so there is minimal impact on battery life mobile data plan usage and user privacy is protected.

https://support.apple.com/en-nz/guide/security/sec6cbc80fd0/...

I’m assuming AirTags just send out Bluetooth advertising packets. Your phone is continuously listening for those anyway to detect devices you own, like your watch and headphone. So that part is “free”.

The power required to process the packet is negligible.

Sending the data back to Apple could be more significant. But I guess that’s only of the AirTag is “lost”, and probably as part of a bundle of data sent regularly anyway, probably when asking Apple servers about new notifications. What takes power is waking up from sleep to send data. If the CPU is already awake, taking a few extra microseconds to transmit a few more bytes of data is nothing.

So really, I don’t think the energy and data it’s using is anything to be concerned about. It’s a drop in the bucket.

> Sending the data back to Apple could be more significant. But I guess that’s only of the AirTag is “lost”

To do that, your phone has to know which AirTags are lost.

A solution might be that Apple periodically sends a list of lost AirTags to phones (possibly as a bloom filter or other inexact, but compact, structure), but I’m not convinced it does. Maybe, it bets on AirTags being rare enough (who’s going to buy tens of them? I wouldn’t, as the idea of having to replace those batteries would put me of buying many) for this not to be a problem.

Reminder: repair.org fights for right to repair legislation, provides actionable advice, and takes tax-deductible donations.

Repair.org and ifixit are two sides of my favorite coin right now.

More like two sides of the same AirTag.

I wonder what the internal discussion at Apple was about whether or not to include a loophole in the product.

The fact that fixit has gone out and shown how you can add a loophole rather than wasting $13 on an accessory is a bit of a facepalm moment.

>add a loophole

Now, throw it in a glass of water for an hour.

I'd be amazed if it didn't trash the IPx7 rating, which is an AirTags differentiator over Tile.

That's a silly argument. There's absolutely no reason that a built-in loophole would have to let water in (unlike iFixit's drilled hole, which might).

i meant that iFixit’s argument that you could be cheeky and drill a hole for a key ring is true, but also would in all likelihood ruin the waterproofing.

I’ll go out on a limb here and guess that their guiding principle with this was as it is with every other portable device they have now - make it as small as practically possible and let people extend it if and how they want[1] to.

Saves a little bit of material, makes manufacturing a little less complicated, and makes the accessory ecosystem a whole lot more appealing.

1. I don’t carry a keychain, for example, but I’ll slip one in each of my bags.

> I’ll go out on a limb here and guess that their guiding principle with this was as it is with every other portable device they have now - make it as small as possible and let people extend it if they want

Here I am, desperately clutching my nearly-obsolete iPhone in my small hands, waiting for Apple to return to this principle and make an iPhone that I can comfortably use one-handed again.

> Here I am, desperately clutching my nearly-obsolete iPhone in my small hands, waiting for Apple to return to this principle and make an iPhone that I can comfortably use one-handed again.

I've been using the iPhone12 Mini for months. It works great, one-handed.

I have heard that it has not sold well, and may be discontinued. That would make me sad.

I upgraded from an iPhone SE (5 body) to an iPhone 12 mini.

Here’s the thing: the 12 mini has the same dimensions as the iPhone 6 that I deemed too big originally. I picked up my old phone the other day and holy shit did it feel nice in comparison.

If you were holding out for an iPhone 5 sized phone then this wasn’t it; no wonder it didn’t sell so good in that demographic. I only bought it because I wanted to support smaller phones- but realistically it’s not small enough.

EDIT: I think I’m wrong but it’s closer to the 6 than the 5:

5: H 123.8mm (4.87 inches) W 58.6mm (2.31 inches) D 7.6mm (0.3 inches)

6: H 138.1 mm (5.44 in) W 67.0 mm (2.64 in) D 6.9 mm (0.27 in) (inc. lens, 7.5 mm, 0.30 in)

12 Mini: H 131.5 (5.18 in) W 64.2 (2.53 in) D 7.4 mm (0.29 in)

No, you're right. The screen makes it a LOT bigger than the iPhone SE (what I had used, previously).

But it's just at the upper limit at what I can do one-handed.

I traded in an XS Max for it. I don't miss that big honker, one bit. I use it as a test device, nowadays.

To easily do everything with one hand, swipe down from the bottom (as if unlocking but down), then you pull the upper part of the screen down. Works everywhere. (I also have the 12 mini btw, really like it)

The iPhone 12 Mini is great. I will never go back to a bigger phone again. The lack of all day battery life is a feature in my opinion. I use it more like a fancy tool.

“Lack of all day battery” depends on how you use it. I have 2 day battery (about 2-3 hr screen time/day). Since I got a second sim it decreased somewhat though, negated again to a agree by setting WLAN call.

iPhone mini exists. It has lackluster sales though so I think Apple will kill it in the next iteration.

Which iPhone do you have that is much smaller than the 12 Mini?

I have the 8 (I think? whichever one was the last to have the home button) and it’s only slighty bigger than the 12 Mini in size but it’s actually the screen on the newer phones that are too big. There isn’t a way to comfortably hold it and reach all of the real estate one-handed.

I know I can do the stupid scoot the screen down thing but if you’ve ever tried to use that on a regular basis you’d see how worthless and frustrating it is. It’s a waste of time and sometimes it hides part of the screen that I need to see!

Honestly, if Apple would just let me set a top bar as like a clock or something across the whole iOS and shrink the functional display to the size of the iPhone 4 I’d be a happy camper. It would be ugly as anything but I don’t even care because it would, ironically, be far more functional to me if I could just set the top quarter inch of the screen to be completely non-functional.

Is the 2020 SE still too large? Because I'm pretty sure they're not going smaller than that unless it's for radically cheaper devices targeted at the third world and I don't see that happening.

This was my thought as well. I’d probably never put these in a loop - I’ll place one in my bag, on my measuring tape (ha), and my wife will probably use one too... Most likely without attaching it to anything, just sticking it in a pocket or whatever. It’s fine for all of our use cases.

IP67, size, and design. Your comment is more of a facepalm moment.

I think it has as many non-loophole uses as loophole uses, so I can see why they chose to cut down on bulk there. I put one in my wallet and one in a small internal pocket in my bag, neither are actually attached.

I can't remember the last time I actually lost my bag or my wallet, but these are definitely pretty fun.

prettty sure the entire point was so they can make money off accessories

Beside the size it's probably a tradeoff on mechanical integrity: a keyring can introduce immense mechanical stress. On my last tag the small loophole just broke away after a year on a key that was not used daily or in harsh environments. With the AirTag you can just replace a $2 third party accessory. Apple didn't have to engineer a very durable (maybe milled?) loophole, which would have increased cost.

This is what I would guess. They didn't want to see a bunch of broken look airtags floating around in a year's time and they also didn't want to spring for the metal reinforcement.

Great response. Thank you!

It's really not though. I just bought a four pack, and I only want a loophole on one of them (so I bought the Belkin holder).

Because it's not going to be $13, you'll surely be able to buy 5 for $6 off Amazon soon for whatever kind of holder-with-loophole you want.

People love customizing their things. Some people will need large holes, other tiny ones, depending on what they're attaching it to. Some will want to make their AirTag bigger and bulkier, others not.

In this case I think Apple made the absolutely right decision.

Put one in your ear as a tunnel. Remember tunnels?

While ifixit did drill a hole, we have no way of knowing how durable that hole will be. The drill point looked pretty close to the edge, simple fatigue may snap the hole quite quickly.

Additionally, the nice thing about the keyring is that the airtag is parallel to the keychain loop, while with a keyring its perpendicular - to me this is huge in terms of comfort on my keychain

Disappointed that this teardown was more of a teaser without any PCB photos. Here are some YouTube videos that feature a better look at the PCB of the AirTag:

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63dJ5ytz37w

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1-iKyVyLfU

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeytpQcUHSw

Only video [1] went all the way and removed the PCB from the plastic case, revealing what seems to be an NFC antenna facing the plastic dome. Unfortunately, they struggled with removing the plastic carrier and broke the board in two.

Hahah the coin x-ray thing was great

The ifixit folks are really good at getting people invested in understanding what’s going on inside our gadgets. A little bit of humour like this is especially fun.

> All three trackers open up with finger power—no other tools required! That said, the AirTag is by far the most difficult,

I'm a little bit uncomfortable about this, because it gives access to a coin cell battery.

People under-estimate how dangerous batteries can be.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6134a1.htm

> From 1997 to 2010, an estimated 40,400 children aged <13 years were treated in hospital emergency departments (EDs) for battery-related injuries, including confirmed or possible battery ingestions. Nearly three quarters of the injuries involved children aged ≤4 years; 10% required hospitalization. Battery type was reported for 69% of cases, and of those, button batteries were implicated in 58%. Fourteen fatal injuries were identified in children ranging in age from 7 months to 3 years during 1995–2010. Battery type was reported in 12 of these cases; all involved button batteries.

Btw, would swallowing the AirTag whole be just as dangerous? They're water resistant, but I'm assuming that they won't stay sealed in stomach conditions.

Just saw a show about this, it seems that children, even at ages of 9, have a tendency to put small stuff in their mouths and/or nasal cavities (even as part of playing, to 'hide' it, etc.) If this is done with a button battery, it can cause lasting damage within hours (e.g. two hours). Please be careful, found guidelines in here: https://www.rch.org.au/kidsinfo/fact_sheets/Safety_Button_ba... https://www.health.qld.gov.au/news-events/news/button-batter...

I assume drilling a hole in an air tag would pretty much completely compromise its water resistance?

That would be a pretty big drawback to using it on a key ring. I don’t have to pull my keys out much any more, but I think they still end up exposed to water once in a while.

I wouldn't want to use their hack for drilling a hole - not because of the risk or loss of water resistance but because the edge of the hole isn't going to have great structural strength and will likely crack and let the keyring out. You'd also probably want to get some small split rings to use with that hole, then connect one of those to anything else.

It was only a 1/8" hole, you can't line it with much and still fit a keyring through.

Unfortunately the most obvious use case of attaching it directly to your keychain so you don't lose your keys probably won't work because in your pocket the keyring itself will act like a lever against the hole and tear the case to shreds. You really do need the overpriced accessory for that use case.

To attach an AirTag (or my micro Yubikey) to a keyring, you generally just use a string. It’s flexible, strong, very thin and it’s a good link to any keyring. With Yubikey the lanyard is $1.

Anyway, I was wondering whether another fun idea would have been to drill the hole in the absolute center of the Airtag, and create a new market for batteries with a hole in the middle.

I'm really hoping AirTags put some downward pressure on the tracker industry. There's an outrageous markup on most other trackers like Tile. Maybe if people can get AirTags for $30 Tile will stop pretending their $3 plastic squares are worth $25.

The x-ray image looks like Apple's spaceship campus

I wonder if an Airtag can still track if it's been swallowed? Or does a human body block too much RF?

I can practically guarantee these things will be swallowed if the ridiculous people who eat Tide Pods are anything to go on...

that would be very very painful

Please don't swallow anything with a battery, for the sake of your local emergency department.

For those who don’t know, read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button_cell#Accidental_ingesti....

Basically, shorting a battery using wet body tissues can lead to a hydrolysis reaction that produces sodium hydroxide (caustic soda), and that can burn through your oesophagus, blood vessels, etc.

What exactly is 'UWB functionality'?

Are they using UWB for RF localization?

I assume you would need multiple beacons for that? Are they using the phone as a single beacon? Wouldn't this just give you a radius rather than a location?

Yeah maybe. But from what I've heard the product can do, it'll guide you with a heading pointing towards where the product is.

It may be that the iPhone has some sort of dual antenna functionality where the difference in time between signals being recieved can be used to find the direction.

My initial intuition was that uwb localization was still in research paper territory.

The only previous commercial example I can think of is those Razer Hydra gaming controllers.

Pretty interesting that is come around to a mass consumer product with Apple.

UWB works like this: most of the time, the UWB chip ('U1') is 'off' because it draws a lot more energy than BLE does. BLE's signal strength gives a measure of distance -- but generally BLE uses 1 antenna, so what you get is a signal strength for some unit within a radius of a sphere (again, approximately). When the BLE signal strength is considered 'strong enough', the iPhone commands the BLE to send a 'turn on the UWB in the tag' command. Now, the tag sends a UWB burst. Like this: https://media.nxp.com/static-files/34261e70-6908-4e13-8eec-8... The time-of-flight is measured, and the precise distance is now known. More detail is in this presentation https://media.nxp.com/static-files/8cf4341d-f16d-4971-9b92-c... Further, UWB signal strength helps determine the direction.

Above is the FiRa Consortium's literature. NXP makes a similar chip to Apple's "U1" UWB chip -- however, sigh, the standards are NOT compatible. Yes, they are both UWB and use the FCC rules for UWB RF requirements (frequencies, power, etc) -- but for reasons I do not understand, they are different elsewhere (Protocols? I don't know).

With just one phone your phone can point an arrow in the direction of the airtag and give you a distance to it. Tested it out a bit and it works pretty well but its short range.

Of course the 3D printing community is already designing accessories. https://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=Airtag

Unfortunate to see this use the history api incorrectly to the point that it prevents you from hitting the back button and going to the page you came from.

More like “a discussion about how to drill a hole in it”

"The ultimate white whale: a tool-free user-replaceable battery in an Apple product!"

How sad in how true it is

Do you think they modeled the design after the round Apple campus?

I don't think you need to be inspired by a particular circle-shaped object to decide to design another circle-shaped object.

I was thinking in terms of circuit layout. Trying to fit it into the floor plan of the building would be a very Apple thing to do.

Probably some old Apple product that nobody remembers.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_USB_Mouse

My transverse carpal ligament remembers.

Currently, most Apple design shade gets thrown at the butterfly keyboard. This one must be remembered too in all of its horrendous glory.. We will never forget!

Do people actually need to use these things? Maybe I'm weird, but when young, I had drilled into me Benjamin Franklin's "A place for Everything, and Everything in its Place". If I can't remember where I put something, then I suspect Bigger (medical) Problems are on the horizon... (!)

No one needs them. I have no idea why Apple made them.

I bought one for my key, and am very happy.

Honestly, they look very useful to me. I'm just being sarcastic to the grandparent humblebrag. I don't lose my keys, but I'm so bad at keeping track of them I keep them on a lanyard and hang them around my neck (which is why I don't lose them.)

Sorry, didnt catch the sarcasm through text :)

'Grandparent humblebrag'? Fascinating. State a fact, a datapoint. And it's 'humblebrag'? This is quite an odd way to paint a fact from a person asking an honest question. Perhaps you could further explain your comment? Thanks!

I’ve never lost my car keys, but I plan to get airtags for them because replacing key fobs can be insanely expensive now a days.

I wish AirPods acted as airtags. Those are the only other things I’m kind of worried about losing. Mostly because we have small kids.

Maybe I’ll hide one in our bikes as a low effort way to track them in case of theft.

There have been over 30 million tiles sold worldwide, so there’s a sizable market. Many people are distracted and absentmindedly will leave valuables behind or in odd places, sunglasses, keys, wallets, umbrellas, hats, remote controls. Most of this is stuff on your person. Even if you have a proper place, sometimes stuff just drops out of pockets or bags.

I’d love to track my wallet, but tags are too thick for that.

I was a bit disappointed by this too. Apple even mentions tracking your wallet on their website. Maybe someone will release one of those Costanza wallets with a dedicated cut out for the AirTag, but the smaller billfold style wallets simply won't do.

I had a tile, and I might get one of these, since the UI of the Tile app was just a hot/cold thing back when my Tile worked, and this claims to offer an arrow, which is nifty.

As for why: My laptop bag. Not my laptop, I know where that is at all times, but surprisingly often I'll leave my laptop bag in an environment (think an onsite visit, hot desks, etc) where someone will helpfully "place it out of sight" if I have to walk way for a while. It doesn't happen every day, and of course, right now it happens zero times, but if I ever return to that sort of scenario, it's nice to be able to find my bag if it's moved for me. If I completely lose the bag, it's not that big of a deal, but if I can quickly find it with some electronic help, then great.

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