Android App for AirTag: Apple protects Google users

If you're an iPhone user and you lose something, you take your iPhone, which accesses Apple's own Find My network that encrypts all iPhones together to find your Apple AirTag.

In short, lots of proprietary Apple technology communicated with each other, offering Apple users features that aren’t available to non-Apple users.

That’s about to change.

Apple has announced an Android app that is supposed to offer improved integration of Android Phones into the Find My network. Is that the start of a friendship between the two competitors? No, it isn’t. Apple's goal is that Android users can better protect themselves. This is accompanied by the first updates to the AirTag system.

Improved protection against stalking

The AirTags and the system behind them are getting their first significant updates. If a stalker plants an AirTag on their victim, it will make a sound after 72 hours. This allows victims to find the small device and know that someone is stalking them. Apple is changing the time period of the sound alert from 72 hours to a random time between 8 and 24 hours. This works regardless of the operating system. The idea is that an AirTag usually stays close to the owner.

The Android app is supposed to be like a second function that iPhone users see. They will get a notification on their iPhone after a while, alerting them that a foreign AirTag is with them. The Android app is scheduled to appear in the Google Play Store later in 2021.

These updates for the AirTags firmware have already been rolled out or will be rolled out soon. You don't have to do anything to update your AirTag. The update happens automatically when the AirTags are near an iPhone with an Internet connection.

Android and AirTag today

Android phones can already read AirTags today, but the Tags don’t offer real extras for Android users. If an AirTag and an Android Phone are next to each other, you’re asked to open a link in a browser on your Android Phone.

This link takes you to a screen where you get encrypted information about the AirTag. It shows you the last three digits of the phone number the AirTag belongs to and the serial number of the Tag.

On a second page, you’re shown how to turn off the AirTag. As a proof, you get the possibility to copy the serial number of the AirTag.

It’s clear what Android users can do with AirTags: protect themselves from stalkers with Apple devices. And even if Apple has opened its Find My Network to other manufacturers such as Tile, Android is still left out. Is that ever going to change?