Losing your Apple device can be an expensive mistake. Luckily Apple has some solutions to help you keep up with your Apple devices, and it just recently got expanded with new features and hardware. So, let's take a look at the Find My app and make sure you know how to find your lost devices.

https://youtu.be/LszpIBC1BKQ

In the beginning, Find My iPhone was a simple way to track your iPhone when you've left it behind and leave a message on it. Today, Find My goes beyond just tracking your iPhone. Now you can track your iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, Beats, Mac, and more. The only problem is most of these devices don't have a cellular connection. So, how do you securely track a device that was left behind and has no way of connecting to the internet? I don't know, but Apple figured it out. And, in April 2021, Apple launched the Find My network and allowed third parties to take advantage of the "crowdsourced network of hundreds of millions of Apple devices" to locate other missing things. In Apple's news release for this announcement, they highlighted "VanMoof’s latest S3 and X3 e-bikes, Belkin’s SOUNDFORM Freedom True Wireless Earbuds, and the Chipolo ONE Spot" as examples of upcoming third-party devices you can locate through the Find My app. 

If you're familiar with Tile, Apple's modern Find My network works the same way just on a much larger scale, thanks to the ubiquity of Apple devices and the rollout of the Find My network. Here's how it works. Every Apple device, for almost 15 years, has had Bluetooth built-in and is automatically enabled. This wireless connection is constantly broadcasting and looking for new connections. On Apple devices, that Bluetooth connection is also broadcasting an encrypted anonymous key that gets accepted by other Apple devices and is used to relay the location of your missing device back to you. Apple claims (quote) "The entire process is end-to-end encrypted and anonymous, so no one else, not even Apple or the third-party manufacturer, can view a device’s location or information."

This comes right after Apple announced their latest product the AirTag, their competitor to the Tile, a similar object tracking device that's been around since 2014.

And, let's stop and take a look at the Tile for a bit. First of all, you definitely get a bigger selection of trackers. They have stickers you can put on anything, a card you can slide into your wallet, and two options for keychain trackers, the Mate and Mate Pro. The prices range from $25 for the Mate up to $55 for the sticker. Everything you want to track, Tile has an answer for you. That is until you actually need to find something. That's because, unlike Apple, Tile has a relatively small user base unless you live in a bigger city. They claim to have 40 million Tile devices across 195 countries. In the grand scheme, that's not much, especially when compared to Apple's billion active iPhones around the world. The one place the Tile does excel is in their cross-platform support with apps on iOS, Android, and even Windows. You can even use an Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant device to ping your Tile. The AirTag, on the other hand, only works within the Apple ecosystem. So, if you're an Android user who needs help keeping up with their wallet, I would look more into a Tile. Otherwise, let's take a closer look at the AirTag. 

On the surface, the AirTag is a little coin-sized disk with a plastic cover on one side that can be engraved when purchased through the Apple Store.