Tile Unhappy With Apple's AirTag Launch, 'Skeptical' About Fair Competition and Plans to Tattle to Congress

Just hours after Apple unveiled its long-awaited AirTag, Tile CEO CJ Prober released a statement expressing his concerns about competition in the item tracking arena.

tile image 220
As relayed by TechCrunch, Prober said that while Tile welcomes "fair competition," the company is "skeptical" about Apple's aims, given its "history of using platform advantage to unfairly limit competition."

Tile plans to ask congress to take a look at Apple's business practices specific to Find My and competition with other item tracking options. The full statement is below:

Our mission is to solve the everyday pain point of finding lost and misplaced things and we are flattered to see Apple, one of the most valuable companies in the world, enter and validate the category Tile pioneered.

The reason so many people turn to Tile to locate their lost or misplaced items is because of the differentiated value we offer our consumers. In addition to providing an industry leading set of features via our app that works with iOS and Android devices, our service is seamlessly integrated with all major voice assistants, including Alexa and Google. And with form factors for every use case and many different styles at affordable prices, there is a Tile for everyone.

Tile has also successfully partnered with top brands like HP, Intel, Skullcandy and fitbit to enable our finding technology in mass market consumer categories like laptops, earbuds and wearables. With over 30 partners, we look forward to extending the benefits of Tile to millions of customers and enabling an experience that helps you keep track of all your important belongings.

We welcome competition, as long as it is fair competition. Unfortunately, given Apple's well-documented history of using its platform advantage to unfairly limit competition for its products, we're skeptical. And given our prior history with Apple, we think it is entirely appropriate for Congress to take a closer look at Apple's business practices specific to its entry into this category. We welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues further in front of Congress tomorrow.

To avoid complaints like the one that Tile is going to make to congress, Apple waited to unveil the ‌AirTag‌ until it had launched the ‌Find My‌ Network accessory program, which is designed to allow third-party item trackers to integrate into the ‌Find My‌ app right alongside AirTags.

Third-party accessory makers can build ‌Find My‌ tracking into their Bluetooth devices, with U1 chip support coming in the near future. If desired, Tile could create item tracking tags designed to integrate with the ‌Find My‌ app, but Tile has its own established accessory finding network already.

‌Find My‌ accessories can only operate with the ‌Find My‌ app, and it is unlikely that Tile will want to give up its customer base to create a ‌Find My‌ tag that works with Apple devices alone. Tile believes that just by releasing an item tracker, Apple will be able to dominate the market because of its first-party advantage.

Apple's AirTags are set to be available for order on April 23, with a launch coming on April 30.

Top Rated Comments

Force332 Avatar
38 months ago
Tile had this statement ready and waiting for a long time now. Interesting they didn’t seem to say much when Samsung released their tile-like tracker.
Score: 80 Votes (Like | Disagree)
alexandr Avatar
38 months ago
those who have tiles can attach airtags to them — find my tile!
Score: 61 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DoogH Avatar
38 months ago
If Apple had kept "Find My" locked down, I would agree. But they opened it up, so shut up, Tile.
Score: 47 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gugy Avatar
38 months ago
This is capitalism. Competition is great for consumers. Tile go whine somewhere else.
Score: 44 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ProfessionalFan Avatar
38 months ago
Pathetic
Score: 34 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MysteryMii215 Avatar
38 months ago
Well that didn’t take long.

So how much longer until they inevitably sell themselves to Google?
Score: 34 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

reset password request iphone

Warning: Apple Users Targeted in Phishing Attack Involving Rapid Password Reset Requests

Tuesday March 26, 2024 4:34 pm PDT by
Phishing attacks taking advantage of Apple's password reset feature have become increasingly common, according to a report from KrebsOnSecurity. Multiple Apple users have been targeted in an attack that bombards them with an endless stream of notifications or multi-factor authentication (MFA) messages in an attempt to cause panic so they'll respond favorably to social engineering. An...
Generic iOS 18 Feature Purple

iOS 18: What to Expect From 'Biggest' Update in iPhone's History

Wednesday March 27, 2024 11:10 am PDT by
At least some Apple software engineers continue to believe that iOS 18 will be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Below, we recap rumored features and changes for the iPhone. "The iOS 18 update is expected to be the most ambitious overhaul of the iPhone's software in its history, according to people working on the upgrade," wrote Gurman, in a r...
maxresdefault

Apple to Launch New iPad Pro and iPad Air Models in May

Thursday March 28, 2024 11:07 am PDT by
Apple will introduce new iPad Pro and iPad Air models in early May, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman previously suggested the new iPads would come out in March, and then April, but the timeline has been pushed back once again. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Apple is working on updates to both the iPad Pro and iPad Air models. The iPad Pro models will...
maxresdefault

Apple Announces WWDC 2024 Event for June 10 to 14

Tuesday March 26, 2024 10:02 am PDT by
Apple today announced that its 35th annual Worldwide Developers Conference is set to take place from Monday, June 10 to Friday, June 14. As with WWDC events since 2020, WWDC 2024 will be an online event that is open to all developers at no cost. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. WWDC 2024 will include online sessions and labs so that developers can learn about new...
apple maps 3d feature

Apple Maps May Gain Custom Routes With iOS 18

Tuesday March 26, 2024 3:10 pm PDT by
Apple may be planning to add support for "custom routes" in Apple Maps in iOS 18, according to code reviewed by MacRumors. Apple Maps does not currently offer a way to input self-selected routes, with Maps users limited to Apple's pre-selected options, but that may change in iOS 18. Apple has pushed an iOS 18 file to its maps backend labeled "CustomRouteCreation." While not much is revealed...
General iOS 17 Feature Orange Purple

Apple Releases Revised Versions of iOS 17.4.1 and iPadOS 17.4.1 With Updated Build Number

Wednesday March 27, 2024 5:59 am PDT by
Apple on late Tuesday released revised versions of iOS 17.4.1 and iPadOS 17.4.1 with an updated build number of 21E237, according to MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris. The updates previously had a build number of 21E236. The revised updates are available for all iPhone and iPad models that are compatible with iOS 17 and iPadOS 17, but they can only be installed via the Finder app on macOS...
applephilschiller

Apple's Phil Schiller Works 80 Hours a Week Overseeing App Store

Wednesday March 27, 2024 2:03 pm PDT by
With the App Store and app ecosystem undergoing major changes in the European Union, The Wall Street Journal today shared a profile on App Store chief Phil Schiller, who is responsible for the App Store. Though Schiller transitioned from marketing chief to "Apple Fellow" in 2020 to take a step back from Apple and spend more time on personal projects and friends, he is reportedly working...