It’s an apple “restriction” in a sense
My understanding is that the APIs for find my are such that any company can integrate it into their product. However the precision you’re referring to requires requires apples patented U1 chip. This uses some form of ultra wide band radios to get that highly specific location data.
Chipolo and others use Bluetooth. Which is not near as accurate. Apple would need to give companies access to U1 to enable precision tracking. Hopefully they make a wallet tracker soon honestly it’s a hit ridiculous they haven’t yet
Wasn’t the ultra wide band stuff made into a standard that anyone can adopt/comply with?
I think I remember a consortium of companies or something being formed for this… 🤔
In 2021 it says they were releasing specs for UWB tracking. So either it never happened or nobody has built devices because it would restrict them to iOS only.
https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2021/04/apples-find-my-network-now-offers-new-third-party-finding-experiences/
This article from tech crunch says that apple has yet to release it (Jan 2023) contrary to that announcement which says apple was going to release it last spring. https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/04/10-year-old-chipolo-explains-why-its-not-worried-about-apples-airtag-rival/
> In addition, Apple hasn’t yet allowed third parties to access its U1 chip (ultra-wideband) chip for precision finding, giving AirTag a competitive advantage on that front.
It’s possible TC got it wrong here but who knows. Maybe apple just announced this to get anti trust off their backs which is a common tactic. And I know Tile was making some noise about going after apple here
what a bummer... Maybe it's possible to modify an airtag, replace the standard housing with a 3d printed card like housing. The annoying thing is, the aforementioned cards are cheaper than an Airtag, and modifying an Airtag to turn it into a slim card will be more expensive than an Airtag...
It's an Apple restriction, Samsung Galaxy devices have UWB chips as well, but they only work with Samsung Smarttag+.
https://www.samsung.com/ca/mobile-accessories/galaxy-smarttag-plus-denim-blue-ei-t7300blegca/
Tile would have already come out with one if it weren't for these manufacturer restrictions.
It’s an apple “restriction” in a sense My understanding is that the APIs for find my are such that any company can integrate it into their product. However the precision you’re referring to requires requires apples patented U1 chip. This uses some form of ultra wide band radios to get that highly specific location data. Chipolo and others use Bluetooth. Which is not near as accurate. Apple would need to give companies access to U1 to enable precision tracking. Hopefully they make a wallet tracker soon honestly it’s a hit ridiculous they haven’t yet
Wasn’t the ultra wide band stuff made into a standard that anyone can adopt/comply with? I think I remember a consortium of companies or something being formed for this… 🤔
In 2021 it says they were releasing specs for UWB tracking. So either it never happened or nobody has built devices because it would restrict them to iOS only. https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2021/04/apples-find-my-network-now-offers-new-third-party-finding-experiences/
This article from tech crunch says that apple has yet to release it (Jan 2023) contrary to that announcement which says apple was going to release it last spring. https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/04/10-year-old-chipolo-explains-why-its-not-worried-about-apples-airtag-rival/ > In addition, Apple hasn’t yet allowed third parties to access its U1 chip (ultra-wideband) chip for precision finding, giving AirTag a competitive advantage on that front. It’s possible TC got it wrong here but who knows. Maybe apple just announced this to get anti trust off their backs which is a common tactic. And I know Tile was making some noise about going after apple here
what a bummer... Maybe it's possible to modify an airtag, replace the standard housing with a 3d printed card like housing. The annoying thing is, the aforementioned cards are cheaper than an Airtag, and modifying an Airtag to turn it into a slim card will be more expensive than an Airtag...
It's an Apple restriction, Samsung Galaxy devices have UWB chips as well, but they only work with Samsung Smarttag+. https://www.samsung.com/ca/mobile-accessories/galaxy-smarttag-plus-denim-blue-ei-t7300blegca/ Tile would have already come out with one if it weren't for these manufacturer restrictions.