> Apple is prioritizing reducing the AirTag's utility to stalkers.

No, Apple is prioritizing good publicity. A motivated stalker will just be using another product, which is a net financial negative for Apple. They just don’t want the possibility of the news talking about how someone got assaulted thanks to an Apple device.

That seems a little extreme. Another device won't have the advantage of Apple's "Find My Network". Competitors like Tile have a much smaller network. Or devices that rely on cellular are much larger and don't have a battery that lasts for years. Or even if there is an AirTag alternative that's just as functional, it's less well known and would-be stalkers will have a harder time finding it and using it. So by not supporting the stalking use case Apple is genuinely making it a little harder for stalkers.

But also, I agree that this is about reputational liability more than some higher desire to do good. But IMHO it's also doing some actual good.

Again prioritizing low cardinality event (stalking) instead of high cardinality event (theft) because of "security", making the device mostly pointless, good only to quickly locate some thing at home (assuming battery still holds after the thing being forgotten for years in a closet).

"Again prioritizing low cardinality event (stalking) instead of high cardinality event (theft)"

I don't think you can speak to the relative likelihood of these with any confidence. There are lots of people for whom stalking is a much bigger problem than theft.

Stalking has likelihood of being life threatening, property can’t be life threatening.

I think you'll find it's not so much about how likely the event is (stalking vs theft) as it is about the potential impact of the event.

The things you want to "protect" with an invisible AirTag are, at their core "just stuff".

The things being protected by not selling an invisible AirTag are, at their core "people".

I think if my car is stolen, it's probably a bigger deal for me personally than stalking.

I'm not a female, so I don't anticipate a civilian stalking me for really any reason. A non-civilian wouldn't use an airtag.

Zero stalkers are stopped because of airtag policies, since many other devices exist.

It's not to prevent my car being stolen. It's to find it after it's stolen.

People have been stalking each other since long before airtags.

Well it's a good thing for you, someone just yesterday told me:

> many other devices exist

So use one of them?

I do. I don't own an airtag.

So your complaint is, "This product that I don't own, and isn't designed to do what I want, doesn't do the thing it isn't designed to do.".

Do you also post complaints that GE Washing machines don't have a built-in method to cook a fucking chicken?

I didn't make a complaint.

Increasing the friction and difficulty to stalk someone definitely results in less actual stalking. I'm sure some would-be stalker can figure out AirTags but can't figure out or afford the alternatives.

Also, wouldn't this argument apply to the use of AirTags as anti-theft devices? Since AirTag alternatives exist, just use the alternatives devices for anti-theft that also work for stalking. But some people don't do this and just want to use AirTags for anti-theft purposes. Which sort of illustrates my point. Fewer people do a thing when it's harder. No would care that AirTags aren't good for anti-theft if there were alternatives equally as good.

> Increasing the friction and difficulty to stalk someone definitely results in less actual stalking.

No it doesn't.

If increasing friction to do something results in zero change in how many people do the thing, then why does anyone care that AirTags don't work for anti-theft purposes? Wouldn't there be no complaints if there were alternatives that were just as easy/cheap/functional?

They are prioritizing safety both personal and litigious. Apple markets it as a way to find lost things, not stolen things. There are trackers you can buy for tracking stolen things. I'm only familiar with ones designed for cars but I'm sure there are others as well.

It's useful to help locate things both at home and when traveling. But, yes, optimizing for potential theft recovery conflicts with disabling stalking and, however uncommon, the latter got a lot of publicity, so it's something Apple etc. wanted to focus on (especially given that, in most places, theft prevention probably wasn't very effective anyway).

That's a personal preference. I have like 12 AirTags and find them quite useful. The precise indoor tracking functionality is great. Losing/misplacing something happens a lot more to me than theft. Though I do have an airtag I've removed the speaker from, so could be useful in a theft situation.

The false dichotomy you present does not become any more credible in the form of a thought experiment.

This is literally the situation the comment I'm responding to set up

How many people's lives in third world countries were ruined making that train?

And I know, I know, the downvoterinos!

I don't actually care about this issue at all. The observation is: that moral grandstanding of "woman's lives to stolen bicycles" is somewhat amusing when the hardware is built on the backs of underpaid people in the global south. All so people can have little toys of convenience.

It's likely that Apple doesn't care about woman's lives either, for what it's worth. Just the negative PR associated with the problem at hand.

There are ways to use AirTags that are true stalking methods and these aren't currently mitigated by Apple. If anything this is a false sense of security. Nerfing their product seems more like corporate CYA than concern for public safety.