Memes

I can see the point for Airtags which work with most modern iPhones, or a hypothetical Google equivalent which could work with all Google Services-enabled Android devices. Is there enough Tile users around for it to make sense?

edit: also it seems Tiles now cost exactly the same as Airtags

Where I live there is almost no tile users.

Tile is the same concept as Airtag with the exception that you probably won't recover what you have lost because it's incredibly unlikely it will be pinged by a tile user.

I say that owning multiple tiles. I'm just saying these locators things are only as useful as their network. And the tile Network is mostly very weak.

What sucks is that Apple and Samsung are both restricting the use of their network. Nothing is interoperable as usual. And so the consumer is the one literally losing.

I'd imagine it's something that can be turned on and off, just like it's stealth technology.

Edit: to further expand on this, finding the downed plane is a lot more important than it sounds. This could technically be classified as spillage considering there is classified tech in an F35. Foreign agents would benefit if they found it first. I'm pretty sure there are recon teams trained to recover downed aircraft in military zones. Considering they still are equipped with radio for communication, I'd imagine even just an encrypted message at time of impact could be useful.

Losing a plane over friendly zones shouldn't have to worry about having a beacon that's always on. I fail to understand why it would be silly to believe one could be useful in a jet fighter, stealth or not. I'd imagine it's likely even present but just defunct for whatever reason in this scenario and details can't be revealed about that, as again, it still contains classified technology.

F35s have transponders, just like every other aircraft that flies in the US. They are necessary to avoid mid-air collisions. When flying a stealth mission in enemy airspace, they can turn the transponders off.

Unfortunately, the transponder on this particular F35 is not working.

So once its on the air the jet has zero comms? That doesn't seem right

They still have them but because of course they do. They can be turned off easily enough. I'm not sure what sorts of modes they have when ejecting. I could prolly find an AF tech and ask.

Do they not put beacons on their seats either? How did they find the pilot? I'd imagine if it were an issue, it could be deactivated in wartime or over enemy lines.

Even on home turf it's not great if the enemy/terrorists can find out where your equipment is. Pearl Harbor was on US soil.

Obviously it would be nice in this specific scenario, but how often would that really be useful in comparison to the potential security issues that comes along with it?

Satellites?

Depending on the application you used to alert you of the AirTag, it's possible that your phone did not send location data back to Apple.

Apple can track AirTags, because iPhones are programmed to listen for them over Bluetooth Low Energy, and send the ID of the AirTag and location data of the device to Apple.

If your Android phone has an application to listen for BLE devices in the background, keeping track (locally) of which devices it saw in what locations, that application can tell you if you're travelling with an AirTag (or similar device). It might even be able to interact with the AirTag, such as making it beep or reading its ID. If that application doesn't send your location to Apple, the AirTag was not able to use your phone to make its location known to the owner.

Therefore, to the owner, AirTags are useless unless an iPhone (or other device that sends its location to Apple) is around.

They actually just call it a royale without gps

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