Apple Reportedly Working on Tile-Like Item Tracker Plus Merged 'Find My iPhone' and 'Find My Friends' App
Apple is developing a new app that combines Find My iPhone and Find My Friends into a single package, according to 9to5Mac's Guilherme Rambo. The report cites sources familiar with ongoing testing of the app.
In addition to existing Find My iPhone features like Lost Mode and the ability to remotely erase a device, the report claims the new unified app includes a new "find network" feature that allows Apple devices to be tracked even when they are not connected to a Wi-Fi or cellular network.
The app would also incorporate existing Find My Friends features, including location sharing and location-based notifications from friends and family.
The report claims the app will be available on both iOS and macOS as part of Apple's so-called "Marzipan" cross-platform initiative. The app could presumably debut in iOS 13, which will be previewed at WWDC in June, but no timeframe is provided. It is allegedly codenamed "GreenTorch" internally.
Tile-like product tracker
Rambo also reports that Apple is working on a new hardware product in the form of a "tag" that can be attached to any item, similar to Tile. The tag would be paired to a user's iCloud account and rely on proximity to an iPhone.
Like the Tile, users would be able to receive notifications when their device gets too far away from the tag. To avoid false triggers, it would be possible to set a list of common locations to be ignored like a work office so that the item can be left at those locations without the user being notified.
The report adds that users will also be able to store their contact information in the tag and receive a notification when it is found. Apple may leverage its hundreds of millions of active devices to create a crowdsourced network that helps its users find any lost item in tandem with this product.
No release timeframe was provided for Apple's product tracker, but perhaps it will show up alongside new iPhones in September.
Popular Stories
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Best Buy is discounting a collection of M3 MacBook Pro computers today, this time focusing on the 14-inch version of the laptop. Every deal in this sale requires you to have a My Best Buy Plus or Total membership, although non-members can still get solid second-best prices on these MacBook Pro models. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a...
There are widespread reports of Apple users being locked out of their Apple ID overnight for no apparent reason, requiring a password reset before they can log in again. Users say the sudden inexplicable Apple ID sign-out is occurring across multiple devices. When they attempt to sign in again they are locked out of their account and asked to reset their password in order to regain access. ...
Apple used to regularly increase the base memory of its Macs up until 2011, the same year Tim Cook was appointed CEO, charts posted on Mastodon by David Schaub show. Earlier this year, Schaub generated two charts: One showing the base memory capacities of Apple's all-in-one Macs from 1984 onwards, and a second depicting Apple's consumer laptop base RAM from 1999 onwards. Both charts were...
Top Rated Comments
You don’t have any friends.
....hey siri find me some friends
I'll stick em on my kids!
Au contraire, Mr. Anxiety; the others and I love our chains! We only ask that, perhaps if your benevolence finds it appropriate, the chains be extended from a generous two meters to… say, two-and-a-half? Please?