Can someone explain why there’s so much outrage against Amazon Sidewalk when it’s doing a similar thing to Apple’s Find My/AirTags which was met with almost universal praise?
I wouldn't like if I would specifically keep my Samsung Smart TV offline because Samsung themselves advice not to talk about sensitive things in front of the telly [0], and then finding out that it did go online, via my neighbor's helpful Alexa... No thank you.
Maybe not, but as always it comes down to trust. And I trust Apple to be more diligent with my iPhone's AirTag locating capabilities than Amazon is with their ability to help any device get online.
Amazon makes things cheap and easy but not always in ways agree with.
As a counter Example, Canonical got some critique with their "telemetry in the installer", but if you ask me, they did it in the nicest way possible: They told everyone that they want some data to focus developers' efforts where it counts and they let me inspect the json object I was about to send them, so I trust them and sent it to them with a smile.
In all fairness, there are several ways to transmit arbitrary information on the AirTag protocol. The overall reason why people trust Apple with Airtags/Find My is because they're too big to fail. Everyone has already come to terms with the fact that iCloud owns their photos, iTunes owns their music... what's the difference if they also have your location data?
I agree with this, but I'd add that if you have already trusted Amazon enough to purchase and run 24/7 with full access to your home network their remotely controlled and configured internet microphone, drawing the line at this feature seems a little odd to me.
If you own an Echo device and used it prior to this feature you had already granted a large degree (relative to this feature) of trust to Amazon anyway. It reminds me a little of people who swear they will never use an Echo device due to concerns about eavesdropping but happily carry an internet microphone equiped smartphone everywhere.
Thanks, that makes sense. Eventually, it does come down to trust then. I was under the impression that there was a technical reason as to why Amazon Sidewalk is worse than Find My.
1) A big thing is trust - people trust Apple to keep their data secure much more than they trust Amazon, especially when you contrast both company's main business model.
2) Apple's "Find My" was pitched first and foremost as a feature and benefit for the user. And the value proposition was very clear and useful from day 1. You can find your lost phone even in a place there is no signal. Now with Airtags you can find any device. It's easy to imagine a horror story where you lose your $1000 phone in a basement bar or drop it in a parking garage somewhere. Apple in general has better PR.
3) No one's losing their Alexa device. I mean for 99.99% of users it's never moving once it's placed. So what's the point of this feature? It's just pure revenue gain for Amazon with like zero benefit to the average user. They want to use our wifi purely for their benefit? Come on. I know there is Tile functionality, but it's still creepy - you're using my _home_ as a tracking beacon? At least when it's my phone, I'm on the move and could be anywhere.
Just to expand a bit on the last point - the way Apple's "Find my" works is that the only information shared is that there was an iPhone at some location and crossed paths with a lost item at that location. The way Amazon's Tile will work is that a lost item is crossing paths with an "anonymous beacon" which happens to reside in a very specific location.
In Apple's implementation, there is almost no way to personally identify whose iPhone made the detection. In Amazon's case, it's trivial to identify it - it's the beacon that's at the same place all the time, which happens to be your house.
Isn't it the same with airtags? Your iphone will forward data about other people's airtags as long as you have upgraded to the latest ios. You can opt-out, but you need to know about it first. Same deal I think with sidewalk.
The funny thing is - if Apple made Find My opt-in - most users would chose not to use their device for Find My, though it benefits them all and hardly has a downside.
The sheer fact of asking the user to opt-in automatically decreases opt-in rate a lot (like a LOT), even if that tech is super good. It is way easier to dismiss a dialog than to think what it even does.
I'll grant that the outrage against Sidewalk does seem to be worse, but there are at least some of us who dislike both. I have Find My turned off on my iPhone.
[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31296188