Apple Responds After Australian Retailer Pulls AirTags Over Safety Concerns

Australian retailer Officeworks pulled AirTags off its shelves this week citing “safety concerns.” Apple has defended the product, reports TechRadar, insisting it meets all the relevant safety standards.

In response to the report, Apple issued the following statement to TechRadar: “AirTag is designed to meet international child safety standards, including those in Australia, by requiring a two step push-and-turn mechanism to access the user-replaceable battery.  “We are following the regulations closely and are working to ensure that our products will meet or exceed new standards, including those for package labelling, well ahead of the timeline required.” As Apple’s statement above shows, the brand believes that it is conforming with the necessary regulations for sale of goods with coin batteries inside, and should be allowed on sale on Australian shelves.

Trimming the iPhone App Fat — Mac Geek Gab 869

What’s the best way to remove all those iPhone apps you downloaded once and never use anymore? Listen as John and Dave answer this and many other helpful questions to make your electronic lives easier! Extending an iMac’s life, calibrating your TV, fiber internet, and more are the subjects your two favorite geeks dig through. Add in some Cool Stuff Found and you’re guaranteed to learn at least five new things just from pressing play!

How Many AirTags Can a User Pair to a Single Apple ID Account?

In an interview with YouTuber Rene Ritchie, Apple exec Kaiann Drance revealed that a maximum of 16 AirTags can be paired to a single Apple ID. That comment and others related to the product were picked up by iPhoneHacks.

Though the $99 four-pack AirTag bundle should suffice most of the users, Apple has still put a limit on the number of AirTags that can be bind to a single Apple account. In the interview, Kaiann Drance reveals that a maximum of 16 AirTags can be linked to one Apple account. In the interview, Kaiann has revealed that AirTags can be linked via Family Sharing. Apple has added this feature so that an AirTag knows that the iPhone it is nearby with belongs to one family member, and it doesn’t trigger the Lost Mode.

How Privacy Sits At the Heart of Apple's New AirTags

After years of rumors, Apple finally unveiled AirTags at its ‘Spring Loaded’ event on Tuesday. Fast Company looked at how privacy sits at the heart of the new product.

“When it came to designing our own product, we thought carefully about how to get this right in a way that no one else in the industry’s ever done before,” says Kaiann Drance, Apple’s VP of worldwide iPhone product marketing. I spoke to her and Ron Huang, the company’s senior director of sensing and connectivity, about Apple’s newest, tiniest gadget. “You’ll see that we designed for the privacy of AirTag owners and nonowners, as well as making these benefits opened up to third-party products as well.” And from a privacy standpoint, that’s what’s really remarkable about the AirTag: Apple isn’t just thinking about the privacy of AirTag owners themselves, or even solely about users in Apple’s ecosystem. The company designed the AirTag with the privacy of everyone in mind—yes, even Android users and people who have never owned an Apple product.

Tile: Apple’s Anticompetitive Behavior Has Gotten Worse

On Wednesday, Tile told a congressional panel that Apple didn’t live up to its promises to resolve a dispute between the two companies.

Tile had objected to Apple requiring its users to repeatedly agree to allow Tile to operate in the background, which is crucial to Tile’s service…Tile also said that there were indications that Apple planned to update its Find My product, adding hardware, so it would be a competitor to Tile.

Those are Tile’s two arguments. One – They’re mad that Apple cracked down on apps collecting location data in the background. No sympathy there from me. Two – Apple allegedly plans to compete with Tile with its own hardware Bluetooth device, rumored “AirTag.” Tile is acting as if Apple specifically aimed its location crackdown at them, to set itself up for AirTag, but I’m not sure if that’s right. Tile certainly wasn’t the only one doing that.