In a recently published YouTube video, Rene Ritchie sits down with Apple’s VP of Worldwide Product Marketing, Kaiann Drance, and Senior Director of Sensing and Connectivity, Ron Huang, to answer some of the AirTags-related questions that have been on people’s minds ever since Apple unveiled the Tile-like object tracking product.
During the interview, Drance revealed that each Apple ID is currently limited to a maximum of 16 AirTags being paired with it, and that Apple is looking forward to consumers’ feedback on that limit.
AirTags tap into Apple’s existing Find My network, taking advantage of the 1 billion+ devices that the network currently consists of. The largest peer-to-peer network in the world, the ecosystem consists of both Apple devices and other third-party Find My-enabled products.
Huang reinforced the importance of ‘privacy by design’ for Apple, which was something they were especially careful with while developing a product that could essentially be used as a tracker.
The entire Find My network is end-to-end encrypted to ensure the privacy of Apple’s users, and the AirTags and all of its protocols have layers upon layers of security and privacy measures baked into them, including a feature where an AirTag close to you with its owner not in close proximity will notify you of its presence.
Apple even threw in a pairing lock which prevents an AirTag from being able to pair with another Apple ID while it is still paired with yours, which makes the devices useless should they be stolen by thieves.
AirTags are currently available for pre-order and are set to launch on April 30, 2021.
