- The Apple Tag, what is it?
What does it do?
And what do I think about it?
Right after this.
(exciting music)
Welcome back, my name is Eric
and you're watching Modern Day Tech,
where tech is more than just cool,
it is technically awesome.
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Now this coming Tuesday,
Apple is gonna be having their Keynote
and they're gonna be releasing the iPhone 11.
They've also announced
that there is gonna be one more thing.
What that one more thing is, no one really knows,
but there's lots and lots of rumors,
anything from AR glasses,
all the way down to what I think it is,
and that is the Apple Tag.
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What is the new Apple Tag?
Well simply, it's just a Bluetooth tracker.
Yes, there are hundreds of Bluetooth trackers
already on the market, and in general,
they all help you find your lost and misplaced items,
like your keys, your wallet, or your purse.
If you misplace your item, you can simply go into the app,
hit the find button, and it will ring your device
if it's within Bluetooth range.
All is good in the world.
You can also do it in reverse, so if you lose your iPhone,
you can simply press the button on the Bluetooth tracker
to make your phone ring.
Pretty cool, right?
But you might be asking me,
"What if I lose my device outside of Bluetooth range?"
Well, a lot of devices have a crowd community feature
that allows you to mark your item as lost
and if another user gets
within range of your Bluetooth tracker,
it will anonymously report back the location
of that connection.
You can go to that location,
look for your Bluetooth tracker,
and once again, all is good in the world.
Now the advantage of the Apple Tag is not the tag itself,
it's the device that 900,000,000 people in the world
are carrying right in their pocket, their iPhone.
Plus all the other devices, like MacBooks and iMacs,
that make up this mesh network,
they can all connect to your Apple Tag via Bluetooth,
or some other technology, more on that in a minute.
And then once the connection is made,
it will report the GPS location of that connection
back to you.
The game changer here
is the number of active users looking for your lost item.
In comparison, the next largest community is Tile,
which you might have heard of,
which has about 15 to 20 million active users.
With the Apple Tag, it's 900,000,000 active users.
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Now that you understand what a Bluetooth tracker is,
let me take a step back for a moment.
Apple Tag is not the official name yet.
It was a name that a lot of rumors made up,
including myself, after a developer
that had beta edition of IOS 13
found coding with the word Tag1,1
in the most recent combined app called Find My app,
which was a originally Find My iPhone app
and Find My Friends app.
But when it comes to the name, we are still not really sure.
Since Tag1,1 was in the coding,
all the rumors included the word Tag,
like iTag, and AirTag.
But iTag is already a name
of a Bluetooth tracker out there in the market.
Don't waste your time, it's not worth it,
don't even look it up.
And AirTag is the name of a lot of different companies
already in business.
Plus the word AirTag doesn't make sense to me,
AirPods worked because AirPods were E.A.R. Pods
and they were in you ears,
but AitTag doesn't go in you ears.
What would be the name of the new tag?
Well, we just have to wait and see.
So like I mentioned earlier,
Apple Tag could be using a different way
to communicate with your iPhone.
There are other communication chips in your iPhone already,
like Wi-Fi and NFC,
but neither of these chips will work in the Apple Tag,
due to the battery consumption
and range limitation, respectively.
But Apple could be releasing
a long range communication standard in the new iPhone 11,
like the Ultra-wide technology,
but honestly, I don't think they would do that.
Not only will this diminish the number of active users
in the crowd community,
but it will also reduce the number of people
that would be willing to buy the Apple Tag.
Now that doesn't mean that Apple's not gonna be tweaking
the Bluetooth technology to their advantage,
as they've done before with iBeacon.
But the underlying technology
still is gonna be Bluetooth low energy.
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Now when it comes to the design of the Apple Tag,
there are a lot of rumors about it being round,
and honestly, I think that's gonna be true.
It's gonna be white,
and it's gonna have some small way
to attach to things like your keys.
I don't think it's gonna be thin enough
to be put into your wallet though,
but I know people will still try and do it.
There's those people are gonna have that big old fat wallet.
I think it's gonna be a pretty flat item overall,
maybe with a couple of curves here and there,
but there's gotta be a way to attach the Apple Tag
to more items, like your bikes, your laptops, your luggage,
and other personal belongings that you wanna track.
It's gonna have a replaceable battery,
I don't see Apple Tag having a way to recharge it yet,
and I don't see them making a device
that gets thrown away every year,
forcing you to buy a new one.
They're not gonna make the same mistake that Tile did
with their original tracker.
I'm hoping the battery will last at least one year.
It's gonna have a loud ringer
so you can find it faster and easier,
and it should be water resistant.
In future designs it will get thinner
and move into a more wireless rechargeable model,
like the Safedome.
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When it comes to pricing,
most of the top Bluetooth trackers in the world
cost between $15 and $50,
depending on the brand and the model.
Most averaging around 25 for your keys
and about $40 for your wallet.
But being Apple, I don't think they're about being average.
I think the pricing for the Apple Tag is gonna be about
59.99 for one device, or two devices for 99.99,
which is very expensive, but totally worth it in my opinion,
if you happen to misplace or lose your belongings
all the time, like I do.
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Will Apple do a subscription plan?
No!
Tile made that mistake.
Even though Apple loves their subscription models,
I don't see them charging for additional features
or services with the Apple Tag.
Talking about additional features,
there are a bunch they could add into the Apple Tag,
but thinking about it,
I think they're going to keep it very simple.
No selfie remotes here.
They will however, have one important one though,
and that is out of range notifications.
Which means if you leave your Apple tag behind,
say at a restaurant, as you walk away your phone will buzz
to let you know to go back and get it, and vice-a-versa.
But to make it effective, and not drive people crazy,
they will have to figure out a way to eliminate
all the false notifications.
Bluetooth is very finicky,
and there are a lot of obstructions
and environmental factors
that could drop the Bluetooth signal for a split second,
which will trigger the out of range notification.
Does that need put in timer delays and quiet or safe zones
to make sure your device doesn't go off
at the wrong place or time.
You don't want your phone ringing in that business meeting,
or while you're sleeping at night.
So they will have to have quiet or safe zones,
based off of your location, like work or home,
but it will still look for your Apple Tag
once you have left one of these locations
to make sure you still have your Apple Tag with you.
They will also have that timer delay
which will help you when you're away from your safe zone,
which should help prevent false alerts.
This timer delay will operate
by delaying the notification alert for about a minute or so,
to see if the connection comes back.
If it does, it won't send the notification,
but if it doesn't come back within a minute,
it's gonna send that notification,
thus being a slight delay, but totally worth it
because you won't get those false notifications.
(Eric's voice briefly drowned out by exciting music)
Another expected feature is AR,
augmented reality can really help you
find your lost or misplaced items
in a totally different way.
I've actually demonstrated it and tried out this feature
in a similar tracker, called the Pixie.
Once you've activated it,
you can actually move your phone around
and see in which direction your misplaced Apple Tag is
in augmented reality,
which is pretty cool and very useful,
especially if you lose your Apple Tag in the couch,
it can also help the hearing impaired.
With all these features,
and the enormous crowd finding community,
with over 900,000,000 iPhone users,
the Apple Tag would change the way
you find your misplaced items forever.
Now let me know down in the comments
what you plan to put your Apple Tag on.
If you wanna learn more about the Appple Tag
and what it's gonna do to the Bluetooth tracker industry,
and its competitors, like Tile, Tracker, and many others,
check out this video right there.
I hope you will consider subscribing
so you get updates on Apple Tag
and many other Bluetooth trackers,
and I will see you on the next video.
Thanks for watching.
♪ Nothing can break me ♪