Andrew O'Hara
After being touted as part of iOS 14, the first accessories to integrate into Apple's Find My app have started to be announced during CES 2021.
The Find My app comes as a default app on iOS 14 and is used to not only find your friends and family that share their location with you but your devices as well. Objects such as your AirPods Pro, your iPad, or your Apple Watch show in the app to help you locate them should you misplace them.
If your device is within range, it will show as nearby and — depending on the device — play a sound to make it easier to find. Historically this was limited to Apple's own devices, but Apple launched the Find My Accessory Program in June 2020 to certify third-party products.
Six months later and the first products to take advantage of the feature are being announced, including the latest Belkin SoundForm Pro true wireless earbuds. These will show natively in the app, the same way that your Apple devices do.
Aside from showing in the Find My app, devices also benefit when flagged as lost. Whenever another iOS user comes near your lost device, you will receive a notification with its location.
It isn't clear what version of iOS 14 will be required to enable third-party support. At present, the likeliest candidate is iOS 14.4 which is currently in beta testing.
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8 Comments
I wonder if this is to preemptively protect themselves against an antitrust suit from Tile.
I love this, both for the advantages it brings to future non-Apple purchases. But also does away with 3rd party tracking systems which generally have vague privacy policies and questionable security. (Eg Tile; their bad rep is earned, https://www.thetileapp.com/en-us/privacy-policy )
It would be nice if Find My more easily allowed finding devices from people not on your iCloud account (with their permission of course). While it's true that someone else can use another device to log into their account and play a sound (or lock out the device, etc), it sure would be helpful if my wife or I could remotely play a sound on her parent's phones when they misplace it and we're not around. (Calling the phone when ringer turned off doesn't work too well since their hearing can't always detect the vibration sound).
I am a little puzzled about a third party device detecting other devices. It appears that any Apple device in the wild is spending batterie life, maybe cellular data, and maybe taking a performance hit. I haven't study the topic extensively. Maybe you can opt in or out.