I love my AirTags because they actually have a functional tracking network. I've lost items outside the house with a Tile tracker attached and it proved to be entirely worthless for actually finding my stuff. They simply don't have a good network.
...but didn't open the protocol to third parties. In other words, it's as "open" as the lightning connector is: "pay us $x for every product you ship, and we won't sue you for using it"
Apple's marketing must train in the Matrix for how good they are at dodging bullets...
at the same time, you are using the Apple network/infrastructure of iDevices that track that item for you. Every Apple device that passes your lost product helps find your product. Should they be doing that for free? Serious question.
You have a point about the infrastructure. But the devices themselves aren't Apple's devices, they are owned by Apple customers. I'd bet most of these Apple customers would be fine with you "using" their devices for free to locate your stuff, as long as you don't charge them either when they use your devices to locate their stuff.
Apple is free to charge whatever they want for the use of their servers and infrastructure, and while it's not a good look, they're also welcome to charge again for the use of their intellectual property. However, that's not a reason that third-parties shouldn't be able to access that data. If I've got a Google Pixel in my pocket, the cost is marginal for me to send an API request to Apple's servers and use Find My elsewhere. Hell, Apple could force third-party devices to enable Bluetooth pinging in exchange for their use of the Find My network. It's apparently been lucrative enough on iPhone, I see no reasons besides "muh walled garden" that they shouldn't extend the functionality to other users.
Sounds like you're thinking about how the first pill costs $7 million to make, but pills 2-inf only cost $0.02. Sure, it doesn't cost anything to wiggle some electrons, but it took effort to build out the infrastructure to do something when those electrons move. It takes effort to maintain it as well.
I'm able to see both sides. We all like free things, but free things cost some body some thing some where. If the vendor/maker of a thing needs to pay a license to make it look free to the consumer, that doesn't seem egregious to me. After all, they'll just roll that into the price of the product.
Ultimately, I agree with you. My overall point though is that opening the Find My network to other vendors isn't the same as opening the protocol. What Apple does in B2B sales is none of my concern.
I was really just playing devil's advocate. It just seems like everyone expects things to be given away as charity. Apple is not a 501(c), so if they come up with something, it's because they think there's a revenue stream in it.
The entire thing works so well precisely because there are so many Apple devices in the wild, and Apple is looking to capitalize on that.
They're welcome to do whatever they please. Doesn't change the fact that they're the largest company in the world though, nor does it exempt them from a bit of criticism for being one of the most ruthless forces in capitalism today. I don't think it's wrong to expect them to set a good example for the thousands of organizations that choose to follow their path.
“Setting a good example” is completely and utterly subjective, and should not be left to a company to manage.
If society deems something is in the best interests of society, it should be regulated by law. Asking companies to mind themselves in regards to what is best for society at large, while also mandating they maximize value for shareholders, is confusing at best.
The question as asked seems pretty clear to me. If Company A builds a product/service, why should Company B be expected to utilize Company A's work without compensation?
The hard part is convincing anyone to use your open protocol, when the people who are in the best position to implement it are also the ones who would most benefit from a closed-protocol.
Bitcoin used to do this: low value and/or infrequent transfers used to be free.
Only charged money for big transfers and the high frequency traders.
Dunno why it stopped. Seemed sensible to reward hodlers and incentivize use for microtransactions. Ultimately, liquidity comes from being able to trade a big thing easily for lots of small things.
> Bitcoin used to do this: low value and/or infrequent transfers used to be free.
Miners used to include zero-fee transactions in blocks when there was space available. Nowadays, most blocks are full or nearly so, so miners have a financial interest in mining transactions with the highest fee-per-byte first and ignoring anything which has a low or zero fee attached.
There was never any special handling for "infrequent" transfers.
Maybe I got it wrong: I thought it meant how long the coins have been sitting around, but maybe it means how long the transaction has been sitting unmined to make sure no transaction is left behind?
But it seems I'm on the right track, in that input_age was a measure of how many confirmations, which suggests it's about how long it's been since the last time they were moved:
Would anyone be interested in actually building this? I would love to work on something along these lines.
An open protocol would mean trackers could be built right into things, like a keychain flashlight with a tracker.
You also wouldn't need a phone to pick them up, an ESP32 could handle the relaying to WiFi, so something like a school's lost and found could have a fixed base station for $5.
Even better, devices could relay microscopic amounts of data through nearby nodes. It would be like the Things Network, but at a quarter of the cost and with zero new hardware to get started.
Making it blockchain-based would guarantee all parties will have equal access to the application indefinitely. It's ideal for a situation where you want infrastructure to be shared by mutually distrusting parties.
The problem with blockchain-based applications right now is that the blockchain is not scalable in its write-access, so the extent to which such applications can be updated is quite limited.
I wouldn’t monetize directly, instead the cost could be subsidized by services built on top of it. For example, naming & discovery, durable log aggregation etc.
At the moment, if someone attaches a Airtag on my car and I have an iPhone it will notify me someone is tracking me. If I have an another phone however I don't receive that warning. Apple's put a product out there that benefits them while decreasing the safety of people who don't use their products. An open protocol at least would prevent this.
USB is a (closed!) protocol that's mandated by regulation. Don't like what the USB-IF has done with their data profiles/power profiles/etc? Prefer a lower-cost connector that doesn't require cables to be hand-assembled? Tough shit.
The mandates are often things you don't see as a citizen, but often on government contractors (a huge part of the US economy).
The number of RFCs that are required for basic things like email, storage, security etc are essential standards primarily because USG required contractors and vendors to adhere to those standards.
