I'd say the one big thing Apple needs to do to make sure AirTags and other Find My network connected gadgets to stay in non-malicious hands is to just work with Google or even build a fork of AOSP and pull in an ambient BLE module with alerts and passive monitoring, this could also help them open up and widen the Find My network to the billions of Android devices worldwide.
I personally think Apple is not at fault for making a good product. I even have an android phone and an iPhone. The finger can always be pointed at someone, but not I don't think it should be pointed at apple. It's really interesting though, how much persision these devices can track, maybe one day android software will adopt a security measure for this. I am sure apple would work with google, especially to avoid the finger being pointed at them and lawsuits.
It seems like the air tag also defeats the purpose of tracking your lost item when it’s stolen. So if the robber or thief steals your bags, they might hear the beeping or get notifications if they’re using iPhone. That’s if you or the police finds your bag before 12 hours is up.
The anti track feature does work after 24 hrs. I bought an airtag to track my own bike and I use an Android phone. I setup the air tag with my iPad and was already disappointed to find out iPad doesn't support UWB. On the 2nd day, the airtag keeps beeping when I use it to bike to classes. Although I was carrying my iPad with the Bluetooth on. I think the air tag thinks my android phone is being followed (the Bluetooth on my phone is also on) so it doesn't stop beeping until I remove the battery. I returned the airtag the following day. Definitely don't get an airtag if you're using an Android phone.
I really enjoy this video but I wish there had been a bit more of a discussion about the Tile products. Back in August of 2021, I had my car stolen while my wife's keys were in the car. Those keys had a Tile on them. I was able to eventually find my car and get it back. I will say it was hard to track a moving vehicle due to time delays in updates. Skip to October, and I had my car stolen again, but this time I had an AirTag in it. Again, was able to quickly find my vehicle (this time it was stolen to get that catalytic converter so it was abandoned and not moving). I can't say I really noticed much of a difference in tracking ability. Granted, the high band makes the compass feature a bit more useful, but overall, the tracking was pretty close. I say all of this, because Apple is the only one who has been taking steps to implement features to help reduce the stocking aspect. Compared to Tile and others, they haven't done anything. I did learn recently that if you are a Comcast user deep in your Comcast router settings is an option to turn on Tile notification to let you know if one is far away from its owner. Either way, it frustrates me that Apple is taking pretty much all the blame for others malicious acts and are being held responsible for an industry they came to very late in the game and are also the only ones trying at least something to help out. Granted, maybe Apple could be doing somethings better (like background app refresh for Android) but still.
Apple could make it such that the airtags would not work if their speaker has been disabled or they've been tampered with in any other way. They've already done it with the iPhones, so this should not be a big deal. Also, instead of continually transmitting its location, the airtag's owner would have to request for it. the airtag would beep when it transmits it's location, alerting anyone in its vicinity who could be being stalked. This obviously is not perfect, since the beep may not always be audible or it may also alert a robber of its existence. That was the best solution i could think of though.
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