Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Businesses IOS Apple Technology

Apple's Limits on Third-Party 'Find My' Integration Under Scrutiny (macrumors.com) 22

An anonymous reader shares a reporrt: Apple last month introduced the new "Find My" Network Accessory Program, built to allow third-party products to work with Apple's own Find My app. While Apple's AirTags have yet to be formally announced, this program was seen as a way for Apple to level the playing field with competing Bluetooth location trackers, like Tile, and avoid accusations of Apple monopolizing the market. n a new report today by The Washington Post, there are more aspects to this program that haven't been previously detailed, including far stricter rules for third-party companies using the Find My app. According to an anonymous developer who shared a secret 50-page PDF from Apple about Find My, customers who use Apple's app to locate a device will be barred from using third-party services simultaneously.

Although the details remain sparse, this suggests that while you will be able to link a Tile tracker to Find My and use Apple's app to locate a lost wallet, for example, you would then be prevented from using Tile's own app to do the same. Additionally, because of Apple's restrictions to "always allow" location access, every outside company will have to ask each Apple user for permission to obtain their location, which is a notable hindrance for item location apps. Another issue pointed out by developers is their limited access to the iPhone's Bluetooth antenna and other Apple hardware. While the Find My app can use these pieces of hardware whenever it needs to, third-party software can only use the Bluetooth antenna within certain thresholds, and if the developers go beyond that Apple cuts their access off and prevents the software from working. Notably, according to these developers, Apple does not inform them what the specific threshold is.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Apple's Limits on Third-Party 'Find My' Integration Under Scrutiny

Comments Filter:
  • by timholman ( 71886 ) on Friday July 24, 2020 @12:48PM (#60326885)

    I love the spin on this story ... Apple is being mean to all those innocent third-party developers, and they can't compete.

    So now they won't be able to constantly track your position, package up the data, and resell it. Oh, the humanity.

    If every company that wanted to monetize my location data could have full access to Apple's "Find My" framework, my battery wouldn't last three hours.

    • I love the spin on this story ... Apple is being mean to all those innocent third-party developers, and they can't compete.

      So now they won't be able to constantly track your position, package up the data, and resell it. Oh, the humanity.

      If every company that wanted to monetize my location data could have full access to Apple's "Find My" framework, my battery wouldn't last three hours.

      That is exactly what I thought, too.

      Definitely someone "playing victim", here.

      • Definitely someone "playing victim", here.

        Yes, the victims of antitrust abuse. There's a lot of leeway to using marketing power, but mandating anti-compete as part of market access is illegal and one of the most common anti-trust finding.

        Just ask Google how much it costs to demand someone not bundle Microsoft search as part of using Google Play.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      I'm not sure if you're being deliberately disingenuous or if you just don't understand the issue, so I'll assume the latter.

      None of the companies in question are tracking your position, nor are they reselling the data. They are tracking the positions of assets and making that data available to the owners of those assets.

      The main purpose of Tile and similar technologies is to locate lost or stolen equipment. Having the ability for every running instance of the Tile app to obtain the device's location and

      • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        Oh, and I forgot to mention the obvious: Forcing the user to give location permission would eliminate any possibility of thieves accidentally reporting the location of something that they stole. :-)

        • None of the companies in question are tracking your position, nor are they reselling the data. They are tracking the positions of assets and making that data available to the owners of those assets.

          As I re-read your previous missal, I realized that you are actually either deliberately or possibly incorrectly trying to create a distinction where there is no distinction; plus, you are presumptuously imputing a behavior that simply doesn't jibe with the experiences of those who have allowed Third-Party Apps have free-reign over Location Services data.

          Of course you are not reporting the "Tile's" Location. If it could do that, it would simply report its OWN Location. So the Location being Reported is of th

          • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            None of the companies in question are tracking your position, nor are they reselling the data. They are tracking the positions of assets and making that data available to the owners of those assets.

            As I re-read your previous missal, I realized that you are actually either deliberately or possibly incorrectly trying to create a distinction where there is no distinction; plus, you are presumptuously imputing a behavior that simply doesn't jibe with the experiences of those who have allowed Third-Party Apps have free-reign over Location Services data.

            Of course you are not reporting the "Tile's" Location. If it could do that, it would simply report its OWN Location. So the Location being Reported is of the User's Phone at that moment; which presumably is within BT range of the "Tile".

            Everyone who installs the Tile app does so willingly, and specifically for the purpose of finding their own devices, knowing full well that it uses your location to report the location of other people's assets. That's how it works. The point is that AFAIK Tile app reports a location only if you are within range of a device that someone is actively trying to locate. I'm assuming that location data is not tied to you specifically, but even if it is, it still isn't frequent enough to be meaningful.

            And you obviously cannot say "None of the companies in question are tracking your position, nor are they reselling the data"; unless you happen to be privvy to their internal machinations; which I presume you are not.

            Nor did t

      • In other words, this isn't spin. Apple's policies on location services worked well up until a few months back, but the new policies are seriously and fundamentally broken; Apple needs to figure out how to fix this mess ASAP in a way that doesn't have antitrust implications.

        Thanks for the explanation. You are correct in saying that a time-delay between detection and reporting kind of negates the usefulness of the entire "Tile" concept.

        However, perhaps if all these third-parties weren't constantly raping Users for their Location Data and selling it to third parties generally, perhaps there wouldn't be a need for these draconian location services restrictions, eh?

        IOW, this is why we can't have nice things...

        But in all seriousness, I think this is kind of a Catch-22 problem with

        • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          Yeah, agreed. The ideal solution would be for Apple to do something similar to APNS, but backwards:

          • The Tile app lets the user register the Tile, calling an Apple API and a Tile API to register it with both systems.
          • This triggers a three-way handshake between the iOS device, Apple's servers, and Tile's servers in which the Tile server registers to be notified when that item is located.
          • When an Apple device detects the Tile, it sends the location information to Apple.
          • Apple's servers check their database and
          • Yeah, agreed. The ideal solution would be for Apple to do something similar to APNS, but backwards:

            • The Tile app lets the user register the Tile, calling an Apple API and a Tile API to register it with both systems.
            • This triggers a three-way handshake between the iOS device, Apple's servers, and Tile's servers in which the Tile server registers to be notified when that item is located.
            • When an Apple device detects the Tile, it sends the location information to Apple.
            • Apple's servers check their database and determine that Tile's servers are registered to be notified when that device is detected.
            • Apple's servers reach out to Tile's servers and provide them with the location of the Tile.

            Optionally, Apple could also try to add some mechanism for letting someone report that they have found a protected asset, and allow them to provide their contact info to Tile. Obviously, that should be a manual decision by the user, and should not be triggered from the Tile side in any way (because that would let thieves know that they are in possession of something that contains a tracker).

            Yeah, an APNS-like system would be very-much more preferable, in that Apple is now in control over exactly when a User's Location is Reported. And I also like your idea of a User-facing Control (Perhaps in iOS' "Control Panel", so it is easy to get to) to manually report the Location of a "suspected" stolen Device.

            Ideally, this needs to sort of work like the "Hot Sheet" that Pawn Shops participate in. But a modified APN system would be a good place to start!

            • Yeah, agreed. The ideal solution would be for Apple to do something similar to APNS, but backwards:

              Or perhaps Apple can provide a special "IoT APN" API that would only Report Location Data to an App like that if and only if the User's iOS Device had just received a "Ping" from a known "Tile" MAC header (or however BT Device IDs work). Yes, someone could sprinkle "Fake Tiles" around with spoofed IDs in the "Tile Range", I suppose; but that sounds like a pretty costly way to get some Location Data from Users.

            • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

              This won't work for Tiles.

              Tile works because everyone ELSE using Tiles reports all the Tiles they see.

              You don't register just YOUR tiles, you detect ALL tiles. Every time you see a tile, you report it to their servers, which then let others see where they may have misplaced their stuff. It's rather useless otherwise - why would it need server access - if it's your tile, it could just log it internally and tell you the last time it was seen. If it was moved then you'd use Bluetooth to find it. But the tile n

              • Thy only way it would work otherwise is if Tile re-did their tiles so Apple could look for beacons matching some prefix (Tiles are just bluetooth beacons after all). Then the Apple API would report to Apple the beacon ID and location. Apple then collects that information and passes it to Tile as is without identifying who sent that information.

                Exactly!

                Who cares who "Reported" the Tile's Location? Afterall, most of the time, the "Discovery" is done at a level beneath the "Discoverer's" Notice; so there is absolutely no value in knowing their Identity. ...Unless you are actually planning to sell that Data...

      • Forcing the user to give location permission when it spots the equipment makes the tools completely useless, because by the time the phone in the user's pocket manages to get the user's attention half an hour later, the user is likely no longer near the location where the equipment was detected, and the equipment itself does not know its location, which means that any attempt to report the location of that equipment has been thwarted by that delay.

        How about this: The information is kept locally and, if someone asks for it, only then is it given up.

        Suppose I have one of these attached to my dog's collar. The dog runs off. At around 3:00PM, your tracker picks up the device as you drive past. When I get home at 5:00PM, I look up my dog's location. The server sends a message to all clients saying "Have you seen tracker ID 7T34892?" You have, so the app will either send the information automatically or will ask you if you want to share that informat

    • by bsolar ( 1176767 )
      If the limitations are a good thing for the end-users, Apple should not allow its own apps and services to bypass them.
    • I love the spin on this story ... Apple is being mean to all those innocent third-party developers, and they can't compete.

      That isn't spin. Mandating exclusivity as a condition of exclusivity is illegal under anti-trust regulations. It's the very definition of anti-competitive and what Google got fined for heavily in the EU recently (mandating no deals with others e.g. bundling of Bing search as a condition of Play Store certification).

  • 1. Tile asks Apple for increased access to Bluetooth.
    2. Apple gives increased access to Bluetooth to everybody, citing competitors that don't yet exist.
    3. Tile finishes its app.
    4. Apple removes the increase for everything except Tile.
    5. Hackers shout "WE WERE USING THAT!" but Apple doesn't care.

  • Thing is, Apple's trackers will probably not have some of the functionality the third-party trackers already have. So the solution, according to Apple, is to force those other trackers to lose that additional functionality.

    This also has the side-benefit of giving some Apple fans the excuse to say "Tile has gone really downhill lately, so I might as well use the Apple product instead".

    • Thing is, Apple's trackers will probably not have some of the functionality the third-party trackers already have. So the solution, according to Apple, is to force those other trackers to lose that additional functionality.

      This also has the side-benefit of giving some Apple fans the excuse to say "Tile has gone really downhill lately, so I might as well use the Apple product instead".

      WTH other "Functionality" would be necessary in this situation, other than "A Device Detected Tile [x] at Location [y]."?

      Any other information is simply inviting Location-Theft for no legitimate purpose.

      • The software from Tile and other existing location trackers generally make note of other people's trackers for the stated purpose of being able to let you potentially locate your lost or stolen items. Apple will almost certainly not allow that.

        Apple will probably make note of "last known location", based on information gathered on your own device - which is better than nothing, but is an inferior approach. It basically only helps if you dropped the item and it lays there undisturbed.

  • .... to just not link your Tile to Apple's app?

    Won't Tile's App continue to work normally?

    Or am I misunderstanding something?

Like punning, programming is a play on words.

Working...