alt Hacker NewsApple introduces new AirTag with longer range and improved findability
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What airtags need is a theft mode, where anyone carrying the airtag is not alerted, but the location can be retrieved by an approved local authority after being voluntarily surrendered by the owner.
Unfortunately the anti-stalking features have made Airtag mostly useless for theft prevention. You have less than an hour to retrieve your item before the tag alerts the thief they are being tracked. I've seen it trigger as quickly as 30 minutes.
> The new AirTag is designed with the environment in mind, with 85 percent recycled plastic in the enclosure, 100 percent recycled rare earth elements in all magnets, and 100 percent recycled gold plating in all Apple-designed printed circuit boards. The paper packaging is 100 percent fiber-based and can be easily recycled.
I'm no material scientist, but this seems pretty impressive to me that Apple's economy of scale can pull this off, and upgrade the device capabilities, for less than $30 USD.
It sounds like the external dimensions are going to be exactly the same or nearly so. I'm hoping the battery compartment is also identical so that third-party mounting and extended battery packs continue to work.
I recently picked up a few of these extended battery packs and it would be nice to eventually upgrade the AirTag if the extended range turns out to be meaningful. They're pretty neat, you remove the battery cover completely and only insert the half of the AirTag with the electronics and radio.
Probably one of the best products apple has made of late: relatively affordable, good ux, user replaceable batteries. Glad to see this iteration hasn't made it worse.
So they made it impossible to remove speaker, destroying its usability as a theft tracking device. One could add an airtag with a removed speaker on a bike/scooter/car and then localize it in case of theft. With the new airtag any thief will be quickly notified they are tracked.
I wish they made airtags in different form factors.
I've gotten into photography lately. I'd love to slip an airtag into more places - ideally within the housing of my camera bodies themselves. But, there's not really any room to put an airtag on or in a camera given the current airtag form factor.
You can get camera cages with secret compartments for airtags. And lens caps which take an airtag. But they take up a lot of space, and end up adding a lot of bulk to the camera itself. I wish Apple opened airtags up to 3rd party manufacturers who could buy the (tiny) circuit board directly, so they could hide it in their products better.
Awesome.
Time for me to buy my first iPhone then.
Sincerely, f** Google. I've been android user since I had to abandon Symbian, and their impotence in this one thing is staggering.
my parents live in Russia and my grandma has alzheimer's, so as a present "for her" I bought an airtag - so in case my mom loses grandma in a crowd she can be found.
Little did I know, GPS jammers around the city make my grandma appear 50km away.
Not Apple's fault of course.
> Maintaining the same form factor as the original, the new AirTag is compatible with all existing AirTag accessories
I'm glad this appears to have been a focal point of the design.
Great to hear but it's still the same shape. I really want a 'credit card' shaped version I can slide into my wallet.
> Designed exclusively for tracking objects, and not people or pets, the new AirTag incorporates…
Interesting to call out that it’s not designed for pets. I know several people with AirTags on their pet collars.
apple should have an anti-theft mode. Where you can't track it, but they can give access to local law enforcement to track it, and therefore wont go into stalker mode / alerting people about it.
If one is in close proximity to the device (say bluetooth), one can take it out of this mode and return it to normal usage.
Is this… skeuomorphism in an Apple UI? In 2026?
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/2026/01/apple-introduc...
I have ADHD – which is hardly uncommon in this economy – and the improvements to finding AirPods Pro with Find My have been a godsend. I use it almost every day. I've lost so many airpods in the past. I hope we see the same improvements to air tags.
ps, Apple is driving me nuts with their branding. With is AirPods one word and Find My two words?
AirTags don't help if the police are understaffed and totally unconcerned.
ProTip: Avoid Austin. Property theft everywhere and the cops don't care at all.
They don't seem to get that if it costs less people will buy more of them. I'm not doing to spend $29 to track a $100 item.
I get the optics about tracking people...
But man that's one of my best use cases, toss a tag in my kid's pocket when we are somewhere busy. I used one on my older in-law who tended to wander.
They work great for that.
Nice, does it support Android yet?
The key ring costing more than the AirTag itself is wild
does this update also enable precision finding from the watch? would this start working with the previous generation of airtags as well (currently you can use precision finding from your iphone, but not from the watch)
Apple's Find My helps thieves more than it helps the owners:
When I was on a walk with my friend, my iPhone constantly nagged me about "AIRPODS ARE MOVING WITH YOU!!!1!" and it showed me the EXACT complete route on the map.. I didn't even ask for it!
When I lost my AirPods (which are ridiculously easy to remove from your iCloud account and Find My: just hold down the pairing button for 30 seconds), it just showed me a vague radius and "Last seen around here 12 hours ago" not even a exact time.
I have an older AirTag, which cannot be seen by my iPhone any more but gives a slight beep whenever it gets shaken. Anyone ever heard of the behavior?
I read they are popular with drug distributors. They ship their merch world wide using various hidden channels and couriers and this helps keep track of the merch.
I read this literally just after I ordered 4 AirTags. Great.
I was really hoping for a new form factor or new killer features. Its too bad that the general public can't behave themselves with simple tech like this
God damn it. I just got a four pack.
Apple AirTag is one of those interesting products that you don’t think you need until you use it. An Apple thing that just works as advertised and is cheap enough that you can keep picking them up at Airports, without the guilty feeling that usually comes with buying high-priced Apple products, such as the Polishing Cloth. And when you order it online, the nice engravings are fun for my daughters. They like it when it is pinged, finding their toys and bags, and it is worth the price tag.
I had to put in a few of my daughter’s pencil pouches and some toys; they are cheaper than the AirTags and, financially, make no sense to lose an AirTag that costs more than the items being tracked. But hey, daughter is happy, and that covers up for the cost.
"With its updated internal design, the new AirTag is 50 percent louder than the previous generation, enabling users to hear their AirTag from up to 2x farther than before."
Curious about getting 2x the distance from 1.5x the "loudness", I would have thought the inverse? Maybe there is nuance to this though.
I tried AirTags once. It beeped non stop on my own possessions. I don’t understand how anyone uses these things.
I wonder what changes they made to the firmware, as the first generation you could “fix” it so it doesn’t notify people nearby.
But the real question is... is the speaker still glued on?
AirTag (and FindMy for devices like phones, tablets, etc.) might be my favorite iOS/Apple feature and one that I use regularly.
Great that they are improving a relatively low profile product. I imagine that the warning of using AirTag on pets is just for regulatory purposes?
And they didn't put a small loop in it so you can attach one of those skinny little lanyard hoops?!
Attaching these things to anything is their major flaw.
/picard facepalm
The new AirTag requires a compatible iPhone with iOS 26 or later, or iPad with iPadOS 26 or later.
Oh come the fuck ON. I'm not installing your silly fuzzy UI, Apple. Get over it.
> and a louder speaker
That's great, but could they do something about what plays on the speaker? It's all pretty in that Apple sort of way, but the fact that its volume goes up and down makes it harder to find. Y'know, exactly the one thing you're trying to do with it?
Is this just to lock out the cheap clones?
The AirTag is a fantastic device.
If only it were usable with an Android phone :(
I was hoping for 6DoF sub-mm realtime tracking. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
I hate that this eventual e-waste wasn't standardized across vendors. It makes perfect sense for every phone to be a potential node, but the network is bifurcated (and possibly more bifurcations within Android due to Google's privacy-first approach...).
Is this demonstrably better that just... the devices already in your bag? My backpack would be a primary use case... and in it are my AirPods, iPad, and MacBook Air. I think any of these can use Find My already?
Are they less prone to stalking? All I see is generic corpo "industry security" verbiage
The greatest success of AirTags is its silent refutation of the clamoring concern trolling.
It's been, what, six years now? The media would pay hand over fist for an airtags stalking story and how many have there actually been?
Airtag is the reason of why I stil have my favourite hand luggage.
I had just sat down on the train from Zurich to Basel. Suddenly, someone sat down in front of me. He looked suspicious, but I didn't pay much attention. Just before the train departed, he picked up what I thought were his belongings and left.
Twenty minutes later, already on the way to Basel, I looked toward where I had left my suitcase. It was gone. That was when I realized that the person who had sat in front of me was a thief.
However, he hadn't counted on the fact that I have an AirTag in every backpack and suitcase.
So I was able to see where the thief was and where he was moving. I considered going to retrieve my suitcase myself, but while traveling back to Zurich, I called the Zurich Police and, as the thief kept moving, I told them where he was.
Twenty minutes later I received a call from the police informing me that they had found my suitcase with my belongings, matching the description I had given.
But also the thief and his accomplice.