We ALL Suffer When Apple Products DON’T “Just Work”

Apple needs to be held to the standard they advertise for themselves. When they slip, they should be criticized harder than any other consumer tech brand operating today. When they make mistakes, they deliver those mistakes at a scale no other brand can approach.

The potential for consumer harm from an Apple mistake is an order of magnitude higher than any other competitor, and Apple has a clear track record of trying to break standards to sell proprietary solutions for their own benefit.

Case in point: AirTags.

AirTags are a really cool idea.

Apple saw the business model of products like Tile and said:

“Hey! We can just rip that idea off, and give ourselves preferential treatment to use EVERY iPhone and iPad and Mac on the planet in a way that we would NEVER allow a competing product to access location data!”

From a philosophical standpoint, this is the kind of egregious anti-consumer move that would have gotten Microsoft OBLITERATED by EU regulators, but everyone just kind of rolled over for Apple. Don’t believe me? Microsoft is getting sued again for trying to make Teams suck less.

AirTag harms aren’t just philosophical. There are practical harms to consider also!

Apple made this a part of their walled-garden consumer lock-in strategy.

The operation of AirTags was ONLY considered for consumers owning relatively new Apple products. AirTags were designed in a vacuum for the customers most profitable for Apple. The filthy poors (everyone else on Android/Microsoft/older Apple devices) were casually disregarded.

Apple made a product that was EXCELLENT at tracking location and reporting to other iOS devices, and launched it at scale. They did not work with the Bluetooth Special Interests Group to consider the ramifications of a location tracking device, and they overlooked the potential for those location tracking capabilities to abused.

Of course that data was abused. Apple screwed up, and now EVERY OTHER company on the planet has to come up with solutions to fix Apple’s goof.

Apple demonstrated again that they are not the market leader they claim to be. A leader contributes to the landscape of tech standards. Apple exists to break standards and sell proprietary solutions.

Google is developing a similar tracker solution, but is working with a broad collection of manufacturers to bring this solution to market. At the same time, Google is working directly with Apple to find ways to properly notify people who might be stalked by AirTags.

Google didn’t create this problem.

Apple should have worked with the Bluetooth SIG, and contributed to the evolution of Bluetooth directly to include industry wide support for tracker notifications. Apple couldn’t have been bothered though. It’s a “feature” of Apple products that they make life more difficult for all non-Apple users.

Bullying is a part of the Apple business model.

I’ve now received frustrating emails from both Chipolo and Pebblebee, alerting me to product shipping delays. You probably don’t know those companies by name. They’re two brands that make tracker hardware, and they’re working closely with Google for the Google updated “Finder” network.

Google has delayed the launch of their network until Apple includes support in iOS to notify iPhone users of an Android tracker in their vicinity. The launch of Google’s new network is now beholden to Apple making this update. Apple seems to taking their sweet time adding this notification to iOS. Apple profits from delaying the Google launch as long as they can.

Because of Apple, Google is having to delay their own tracker network upgrades, and these smaller accessory manufacturers are now forced to delay shipping products to consumers who pre-ordered.

I haven’t gotten ANY replies from Tile. They just seem to have given up.

All of this works to Apple’s benefit. Yet another situation where Apple breaks something, blames the malfunction on their competitors, and while everyone scrambles to fix it, Apple is the de-facto standard to buy.

Revolting

Short story INCREDIBLY long, I had plans to do a round up on these new trackers, and how they worked with Android devices. That coverage is on indefinite hold now.

Apple got away with it again.

This sucks a LOT of the fun out of covering tech…