Are AirTags at Risk? Their competitor from Samsung (SmartTag + beacons), using the same ultra-wideband (UWB) communication and detection technology as AirTags, is due out this year. Samsung can develop its own UWB chip – and, apparently, this chip is already at the home stretch. Tile also announced plans to use UWB technology in its lighthouses in early January. And Apple has put third-party hardware products into the Find My app, and Belkin headphones that it supports have already been announced. What’s going on, what to expect, and why Apple includes its UWB chip (Apple U1) in one device after another but seems to avoid putting it in the iPad?
Apple did (and may continue to do) UWB beacons. Their name is known – AirTag. At the end of 2019, the rights to this trademark were purchased from a company from Zelenograd. What Craig Federighi talked about at WWDC 2019 implied the existence of beacons. They are not a myth. If Apple were not going to release them in the fall of 2019, or the spring of 2020, it would hardly have disclosed its competitors’ plans.
UWB technologies (they are Ultra-Wideband, UWB) have not yet been used in consumer electronics – but to bring to life the fairy tale about magic beacons for the same Samsung, though not a couple of trifles, is not a problem – especially if you do not bother with stupid little things than usual Apple is “suffering”. Is the AirTags song sung? The Apple U1 seems to have found some other use. Common to seven iPhone models (all iPhone 11 and all iPhone 12), Apple Watch Series 6, and Home mini. I wonder which one?
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Nearby Interaction
At last year’s virtual WWDC, Apple provided third-party developers with a tiny piece of UWB technology. The media quickly reported that Apple opened the Apple U1 for developers – it opened it a bit, just a little bit. A third-party application using the NearbyInteraction framework (this is this type of library) and installed on an iPhone with an Apple U1 on board can:
- Detect other iPhones with Apple U1 located up to 20 meters away from them. And try to establish a connection with them if a special application is installed;
- On all iPhones with the same application installed, you can either agree (for one time, until the end of the communication session) to establish a connection or not. No other options are provided;
- From now on, information about the distance to other participants in the session and in which direction they are located is available on any of those who agreed to the iPhone’s detection from this moment.
Fantastic, isn’t it? When working with this framework, applications do not send messages to Apple about their location, and the magic of AirTags does not work. Over time, of course, the capabilities of the framework will increase, but its range limitations are fundamental and unavoidable. In addition, only iPhones with the same application can still play this game. This is hardly a new application for the Apple U1. Smallish.
Find My app
At a minimum, the “magic of AirTags” will work in this case. It will be possible to find a lost iPhone or Apple Watch even on the opposite point of the Earth, with centimetres’ accuracy. At first glance, HomePod mini contradicts this version, but it makes sense. A small smart speaker may well get lost.
Why is the Apple U1 not in any iPad – not the iPad Air 4 or iPad 8? Have you ever lost your tablet? I never, but I know a lot of people who do it all the time. Apple has not included them in the list of components to reduce costs? I do not know exactly how much the U1 chip costs (now produced by TSMC, using 16 FinFET technology), but its main advantages are efficiency and small dimensions, and it is very light and cheap.
My version – when the decision was made to include the Apple U1 in all devices that can use it, both iPad models were already at the home stretch. When changes are allowed only to fix severe problems. But why the U1 is not in the AirPods Max – I don’t know. But this “new area”, although it will be more significant, also does not correspond to the apple scale. Although, if the AirTags project decided to close, this option would be the best.
Apple to release AirTags?
If any of the large enough devices are, among other things, also a beacon associated with the global search engine, AirTags will not be superfluous because of this. Apple would not have canceled a project that has already invested huge amounts of money because of Samsung’s threat to release a similar product earlier. Apple is not afraid to lag behind Samsung – it is much more important for Apple to release a product that meets its quality requirements.
Did Tile’s engineers become smarter than Apple and figured out how to use UWB technology faster than they also? Hardly. Most likely, Tile has a partner ready to give her all this, to spoil Apple. Apple has a lot of enemies. This is not the only option. Recent rumours suggest that this unknown Tile partner could be Apple itself. How do you like this turn?