Insincere Condolences to Tile

Well, it seems like today may well be the day that Tile dies. Apple’s AirTags have been rumored for a long time, but all signs are indicating that Apple will finally reveal them at their event today.

Apple’s AirTags will likely have a few advantages over Tile’s trackers, from a much wider audience of prospective buyers (I don’t know the makeup of Tile’s user base, but I would guess it skews strongly toward iOS users), to the increased functionality and precision added by the (all but guaranteed) inclusion of Apple’s W1 chip, and other features Tile never would’ve been able to develop properly because they didn’t have the financial bandwidth to invest in the necessary R&D. I’m no doctor, but I’ve got a feeling the announcement of AirTags will be roughly the equivalent of a stage four cancer diagnosis for Tile.

It’s kind of sad. But not really. Their trackers were never great in the first place. I had quite a few of them over the years, and even bought them as stocking stuffers for my family for Christmas one year. The experience was never as good as I wanted it to be. The batteries died after a year, they only worked about 80% of the time, and they weren’t even that accurate or helpful when they were functioning properly. Furthermore, I read Tile’s privacy policy a while ago, and immediately threw all of my still-functional tiles in the trash. Their privacy policy allows them plenty of legal latitude to collect your personal data and location data, and then funnel it back to other companies, including Facebook. The only way to limit that data sharing is to delete your account and stop using your tiles.

The Tile company saw the end coming, as evidenced by the fact that they took legal action against Apple on the grounds that the “Find My” app was anticompetitive because it came with the operating system, and they proceeded to argue on the record that it gave Apple an unfair advantage to sell their AirTags (which, mind you, at the time, and still as of 12:39, September 15, 2020, did/do not exist). They’re smart folks, but the transition to a different type of product or expansion into a niche market should’ve began long ago. Perhaps more partnerships with companies to build Tile functionality into their products directly for items like wallets or remote controls (assuming that using the functionality would be optional and the data collection could be disabled) would be a sustainable route. Hindsight is 20/20, I suppose.

But still, here’s to Tile. 🥂

You had a good run, and you’ve given the tech industry a good idea that they can now make into a successful business without relying on flagrant privacy abuses and vaguely prototypical hardware. I’m truly grateful for that, but I can’t say that I wish you any further success.

UPDATE: 9/16/20, 11:32;

Apple did not announce AirTags yesterday, so it’s time to eat my words I suppose. Tile will live another day (or month). I expect we‘ll hear about AirTags along with new iPhones whenever they’re announced, so we’ll table this article for now and revisit it in a few weeks.