iOS 14.5 Beta 3 Includes 'Item Safety Feature' for AirTags and Other Tracked Items to Help Prevent Stalking
iOS and iPadOS 14.5 beta 3 includes a new "Item Safety Feature" that helps prevent someone from stalking or tracking you with item trackers such as AirTags.
The new toggle was higlighted by 9to5Mac contributor and developer Benjamin Mayo, who explains that with the feature toggled on, your iPhone will notice that someone has placed an AirTag or other Find My-compatible item tracker in your possession and prevent your location from being shared. If you attempt to turn the toggle off, the Find My app warns you that by doing so, "the owner of an unknown item will be able to see your location."
The prompt states that with the toggle off, your iPhone will no longer send you notifications if an unknown item is found moving with you. iOS 14.5 beta 3, released this week, includes a new Items tab within the Find My app, which is primarily expected to be the home of Apple's upcoming AirTags item tracker.
MacRumors contributor Steve Moser last year discovered code within iOS 14.3 beta 1 that states, "If you feel your safety is at risk due to this item, contact your local law enforcement. You may need the serial number of this item." Additionally, iOS code says that users should learn how to disable an item, which in AirTags' case may involve removing the battery, in order to stop it from transmitting your location.
AirTags have been rumored to be launching for months now, and the most recent hope is that a launch will take place during a virtual event this month. Initial speculation pointed to an event taking place on March 16, but Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that an event on March 16 won't happen.
A date for the potential event is unknown, but March 23 and March 30 appear to be reasonable guesses based on Apple's preference for Tuesday events and Apple's comments that its App Tracking Transparency requirement that's being finalized in iOS 14.5 will launch in "early spring."
Popular Stories
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 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 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 ...
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
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...
Top Rated Comments
then I thought, well if it’s my own that I’m using to track my car maybe it won’t, but then realized that stalkers would have their own tag to stalk someone so they would have the same disable or continue option. Super curious how they solve this.
Nice catch Apple!