[mirths]

The AirTag transmits every 2 seconds. The iPhone should scan every 2 minutes for 2 seconds in order to capture the AirTag. BLE scanning costs about ~20mW. So the average power consumption is 20mW * (2sec / 120sec) = 0.3mW.

Over an entire day, it's 7mWh. The iPhone 12 battery is 10000mWh.

Conclusion: it's neglibile.

[beiller]

Would it be more if we consider the radio boot time to send a tx, and the amount of bytes sent to apples server? Also what happens if I'm at the air port with 100 air tags in range? I know they try to piggy back the data transmissions but now we are counting on apple's software having no bugs.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

Reporting this data home also costs power.

It's rather pathetic how Apple restricts user's right to use full capabilities of their devices (like restricting running apps in the background) to 'increase their battery life' while simultaneously be perfectly fine to use that power for their own benefit.

I wonder can a user disable this airtag reporting feature if he doesn't own a single airtag and doesn't want to participate in this surveillance network?

[knolan]

You can disable it from the Find My settings for iCloud in your phone.

[saagarjha]

Limiting background execution is annoying, but I'm not sure if you understand how much battery an app running in the background can consume when compared to something like this.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

I am not so sure you understand how well I am aware.

[GeorgeTirebiter]

It's the principle: other people's tags get to commandeer resources from 'my phone' without me giving permission. Unless somewhere in the iPhone fine print it say something like "by using an iPhone, you are implicitly agreeing to become part of Apple's Global BLE Network" --- well, if not that, I'm not sure how Apple gets away with this.

[ylk]

> Any iOS, iPadOS or macOS device with “offline finding” enabled in Find My settings can act as a “finder device”.

https://support.apple.com/en-nz/guide/security/sec6cbc80fd0/...

Open the Settings app and search for "Find My". You'll find the setting. Or follow this: Settings->Apple ID->Find My->Find My iPhone->Find My network

There's some explanation as to what it does and you'll be able to opt out if you don't like it. (Though you won't even see the "Find My network" setting if you had "Find My" disabled anyway)

[AlphaSite]

It also helps find your phone if you loose it. So everyone wins.

[GeorgeTirebiter]

Yes, and... you are 'automatically opted in' and you have to disable this if you do not want to opt in via Settings->Apple ID->Find My->Find My iPhone->Find My network (That is pretty darn buried IMHO, but not germaine).

I'm actually quite shocked folks on here do not appreciate that the 'default' is opted-in, rather than not. When you own an Apple iPhone or iPad, you are part of Apple's network, and some of 'your' product is used to be in service of Apple's services. It's not like the requests to send 'user data' back to an app provider 'to help improve the experience' --- it's you Will send data back to Apple because that is the default -- and most people will surely not know the Settings->Apple ID->Find My->Find My iPhone->Find My network seequence.

Does this not seem somewhat fascistic? For the record, I have 2 iPads, and also for the record, I'm an Apple alum -- I have nothing but goodwill for the Company, however, this seems, to me, quite shady. (Downvoters, I'm expressing an opinion. Not polluting HN's polite discourse.)