[md_]

On Apple's devices, you cannot disable that BLE broadcast. The same is true on the Pixel 8: https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/8/24123909/google-pixel-8-pr.... That's the whole point of this design, and fundamentally different than just having some app ping a server once in a while so long as it has network access.

[ranguna]

Wow that's a serious privacy concern

[md_]

Maybe? I dunno.

The design of this is pretty clever: https://www.wired.com/story/apple-find-my-cryptography-bluet....

I presume somewhere you can turn this off for real, but the defaults seem sensible to me.

[extraduder_ire]

Even if you turn on airplane mode on the device?

[md_]

Beats me. I can't find anything definitive on this. Since Apple devices continue to broadcast Find My signals even when powered off (as long as they have a little bit of battery left), I assume they continue to do so in airplane mode.

It wouldn't do a lot of good if thieves could just turn off Bluetooth, right?

[idle_zealot]

Airplane mode doesn't turn Bluetooth or Wifi off at all on recent OS versions of Android or iOS.

[grotorea]

Really? What's airplane mode even for then?

[idle_zealot]

It disables cell data and calling.

[master-lincoln]

really? Why did they even leave the feature in then?

[joseda-hg]

It turns off celular which is the main problem (Wifi is common enough in modern airplanes so I have to assume the interference risk is low, same for Bluetooth)