> The new AirTag is designed with the environment in mind, with 85 percent recycled plastic in the enclosure, 100 percent recycled rare earth elements in all magnets, and 100 percent recycled gold plating in all Apple-designed printed circuit boards. The paper packaging is 100 percent fiber-based and can be easily recycled.
I'm no material scientist, but this seems pretty impressive to me that Apple's economy of scale can pull this off, and upgrade the device capabilities, for less than $30 USD.
The fundamental issue preventing keyring aperture integration stems from the AirTag’s reliance on inverse-phase magnetic reluctance in the structural substrate.
You see, the enclosure maintains a precisely calibrated coefficient offramular expansion. Introducing a penetrative void would destabilize the sinusoidal depleneration required for proper UWB phase conjugation. The resulting spurving bearing misalignment could induce up to 40 millidarkness of signal attenuation.
Apple’s engineers attempted to compensate using prefabulated amulite in the magneto-reluctance housing, but this only exacerbated the side-fumbling in the hyperboloid waveform generators. Early prototypes with keyring holes exhibited catastrophic unilateral dingle-arm failure within mere minutes of deployment.
Until we develop lotus-o-delta-type bearings capable of withstanding the differential girdle spring modulation, I’m afraid keyring integration remains firmly in the realm of theoretical engineering—right up there with perpetual motion machines and TypeScript projects that compile without any // @ts-ignore comments.
The technology simply isn’t there yet.
Indeed, LLM's still suck at the cultural nuance required for humor. It's like they're writing for an audience that's too generic, so the joke doesn't truly "land" for anyone in particular.
> attempted to compensate using prefabulated amulite in the magneto-reluctance housing, but this only exacerbated the side-fumbling in the hyperboloid waveform generators
Wrote my PhD dissertation on this. It would've been in the literature for Apple's engineers to find, but unfortunately I lost institutional support to get this into a journal after my college (Mailorderdegrees.com, an FTX University^TM) folded mid-process.
I think the point is to make the smallest unit of functionality possible and then people can integrate that into their use case using attachments, casings, etc. in a way they see fit. It's a good approach for this product in my opinion.
I think this argument would work better if the AirTag in its minimal form wasn't so teardrop-shaped. It feels almost like it was designed to be difficult to integrate into other environments because it lacks any edges or openings. It ensures that anything that could hold it must be at least as big as the AirTag itself. It really confuses me why they couldn't even allow for a single small hole in its edge - it would still leave attachment up to the user, but make it far more flexible by letting people just hook it onto things. Is it because design had overpowered functionality in this product? Is it because this shape is somehow mandated by the hardware within it? It confuses me.
This might also explain why the first party luggage loop accessory seems to have been (unfortunately) memory-holed. I think third parties still sell them out of excess inventory, but they've been harder to come by in recent times.
My current carry-on doesn't have large enough attachment points to easily accommodate the Apple leather case's keyring, so an updated loop would have been welcome.
And the result is that for every oh-so-sustainable AirTag sold, a keyring doohickey is dieseled/kerosened from AliExpress' China warehouse to the consumer.
You're getting a ton of jokey replies, in true internet fashion, but the real answer is acoustics. For it to sound as loud as it can with no visible speaker grille, it needs to be that shape with no keyring holes.
I use quite a few varieties, including Apple's, and I have found Belkin’s to be an ideal one — small, secure, with a minimal footprint, and available with a keyring or a lanyard.
Hmmm! Nope, it was not. Checking the website again, it says $12.99 for one and $39.99 for the 4-pack. I remember picking up two of the 4-pack for less than the 4-pack of AirTags (including the sales tax in California).
For some reason, though, it is cheaper in the Indian Amazon. Right now, they are selling for roughly $9.70 (₹889) a piece (all taxes inclusive).
My father-in-law is a builder. It is difficult to get his attention in a magnificent space because he is lost in wonder. We were in an Apple Store together years ago and I asked him what it would cost to build an attachment point to the tag itself. I will never forget his answer… 'We can’t, we don’t know how to do it'
Different people want different attachment types (or no attachment point at all), so it makes sense for that to be external. I've used other trackers with integrated attachment points, and because the attachment point has to be very compact it tends to be flimsy or hard to fit.. vs the Apple one where you can add a larger attachment point that makes sense to you.
Right? Nokias had the equivalent of today's "case" built right into the design of the unit, plenty of durable plastic around the vulnerable parts -- the phone would've been considered unfit for sale if it couldn't survive a drop in out-of-the-box condition.
By the time you stripped a dumbphone down to be as vulnerable as one of today's is, it'd be a bare PCB. Nah, probably even in that state, I bet it could handle a drop better than a new iPhone straight out of the box.
What you buy today isn't a complete phone, it's just the guts. One tumble to pavement and you're out a grand. Heaven help you if you fumble it while trying to install the case that should've been part of it from the beginning.
And yet, we still buy them, because the alternatives are from shady manufacturers who never provide updates, and there is no third-party hardware that can run up-to-date iOS. If there was, I'd buy an iNokia in a heartbeat.
I'm carrying my 13 Pro without a case, to see it's Alpine Green glory and feel the matte finish on the back. It's been perfectly fine for the last almost 4 years, some minor scratches on the steel edges I fixed with a sandpaper, there is one recent scratch on the screen and that's all. Otherwise it looks good, just a bit used. Has fallen multiple times from pocket when sitting, and a dozen times from tables, few times onto pavement (that's what needed sanding).
Almost every single one "case" for iPhone is a waste. Waste of material, waste of space, waste of your money, waste of user experience. You've already paid for a perfectly good phone, and then slapped some $[1]0.99 case on it to gain nothing but pain and vanity.
I only had one case on a phone, that made it better - original wooden case for 1+3T. Been looking for same experience on iPhone, but it's not possible due to shape -- they are all bulky. The closest thing is carbon-fiber cases, and I had one, which saved this iPhone when I dropped it onto slanted pavement, where it slid for a few meters screen down, ruining the case, but saving the screen.
Would I drop it if I wasn't using a case, that has parts sticking out, making the phone more cumbersome to use and carry? Unlikely, because it happened in the first year owning it, and I've been going caseless since then and nothing similar happened.
I dropped my flagship Samsung S24U one time. I was running and it slipped out of my back pocket.
That 1 meter fall resulted in calls unable to be placed, USB charging and ABD does not work, and the microphone for the voice recorder does not work. All that indicates that the daughterboard cable was displaced. But the unworking rear camera indicates that there is a second fault in there as well.
Not to mention the alarmingly large dent in the corner, that shattered the screen protector and likely would have resulted in the screen itself having shattered if no protector were on it.
New phones are designed to break. Contrast with my Note 3 that I carried for 8 years without so much as cracking the screen once.
Yes, the phone case industry should exist. People want different things. Plenty of people are willing to go without a case entirely. For those who want a case, they want different tradeoffs between bulk and protection. They want different textures. It's OK to sell something that isn't all things to all people.
> For the initial disassembly, the AirTag is said to be the hardest to open to access the battery. Though all three could be opened by hand, the AirTag is suggested to be the hardest due to the lack of divots for grip.
Does the author lack thumbs? It’s easy to twist the battery open.
I get some AirTags opened easily and others are harder. We have more than ten AirTags in the family and I have experienced quite a range of torque and force required. This could be because of gunk over time, though, which wouldn’t be something these guys faced.
The lack of a divot prevents iFixit from selling an overpriced single use tool that exactly matches the divot shape for $50 USD that just so happens to be the exact same shape and material as a $0.05 guitar pick. Totally unacceptable, won't anyone think of the environment?!?!?!?!
There are third-party tags out there compatible with both Google and Apple's network that is roughly the same size and use the same battery, yet have a giant lanyard opening in the design to fit anything.
Apple could trivially have fit a usable hole if they wanted to. They just don't want to because they get to sell accessories with that now. Also, looking cleaner on its own helps sell even if that is an entirely useless quality for a tag tha tneeds to go into a bloody case.
Do the third-party tags have all the same features, size, capabilities, range, durability, etc.? Or have they made other tradeoffs instead of eliding the attachment point?
I don't know of any third-party AirTag-compatible trackers that have UWB right now, but this applies equally to tags that are much larger than the AirTag. The rest is identical - good battery life, range, loud speaker, ...
I have a few theories on the lacking UWB:
1. Given that UWB is also super slow to roll out to Google Find, with only the Moto Tag available, there might be a technical/regulatory hurdle that manufacturers don't think is worth it
2. Apple/Google might make it a pain to be allowed to integrate with their UWB stuff
3. Cost - maybe the UWB stack is comparatively expensive, with third-party tags aiming for price brackets as low as 1/0th the cost of an AirTag
As a note, I don't know if this is because of regional differences in spectrum limits, but at least with AirTag and Moto Tag v1 EU versions, I could never get UWB to give any meaningful directions until I was already staring at the thing. Once you were in range to even consider UWB, playing a sound would be way more effective.
Recycled metals have always been cost effective. Recycled plastic is much more expensive than virgin plastic, but it's a very small materials cost to start with, likely totaling only a few cents.
Apple rarely offers direct discounts of closeout or excess merchandise. Instead to clear out back stock they’ll work with partner retailers (Amazon, Best Buy, etc.) who don’t mind the brand perception associated with offering deeper discounts.
First-gen AirTags have been on sale on Amazon frequently over the last year, and they’ll probably drop the price again soon.
What level of materials recycling would be required for you to not consider it green washing?
It’s a genuine question, since I don’t like Apple and agree that we buy tons of stuff we don’t really need. That said, our bicycles can’t be insured anymore, but having AirTags at least alleviates some of the angst over leaving them in public places.
Recycled plastics actually produce microplastics more than virgin plastics do. Some studies on recycled polyester garments found that they dump an additional 50% more or so into the environment than non-recycled polyester fabrics. And those non-recycled fabrics already release enormous quantities over their lifespan into the water supply and open air (via your dryer exhaust) already.
Dumb example for the sake of discussion, you could understand why recycled plutonium would not be a healthy thing to weave a sweater out of. It's less about the recycling and more about the material itself.
I’m aware, which is why we don’t buy products with recycled synthetics fabrics for our baby. Ironic, since so many brands are hellbent on promoting the recycled fiber as more sustainable.
But: the AirTag is made of hard plastic (polypropylene?) through injection moulding. I’m not sure it leaks even a tenth of what fiber would. Just a thought :)
If you believe Hank Green (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=325HdQe4WM4), a lot of recycled plastics aren't recycled the way I used to think they were (by shredding them, melting them down, and extruding them into new shapes). Rather, they're chemically decomposed into what's essentially raw feedstock, purified, and then re-synthesized into new polymers.
That's pretty energy intensive, to the point that it may be better to just use new feedstock (which is produced as a byproduct of oil and gas extraction). There are obviously higher-order effects to think about, but for me, plastic recycling isn't an obvious win for the environment.
I think we’ve more or less debunked plastic recycling, as nothing more but a way to make consumers feel good about purchasing things made of plastic.
We have to recycle plastic where we live — and do so happily —, but I often joke with my partner about where the plastic will end up, since she insists on first washing the plastic.
It’s never possible for things to be good with people like you. It’s not 100% recycled, which would be better. But surely, this is better than 0% recycled??
Ironically, it's worse. I just wrote another comment about this. Recycled plastics carry more toxic load and shed more (and more fragmented) microplastics into the environment. Recycled plastics only win out on carbon emissions.
Moral of the story: plastic is just not good. Avoid buying things made out of ANY kind plastic if you are going to regularly wash and mechanically agitate them. You won't eliminate 100% of washed plastic in your life, but it's surprisingly easy to get rid of 80% of it without sacrificing quality of life.
This is a good example of how easy it is to fool people if they don’t have their own understanding of how things work.
Highlighting this has been a priority in my parenting. My child is having a great time trying to scare friends about the dangers of the chemical dihydrogen monoxide, which is found in a surprisingly large number of manufactured foods.
Nobody said it was. But it's not bad because of chemicals, because all bread is created with chemicals.
As for natural versus artificial - that's also bullshit. There's many natural ingredients that are poison, and many artificial ones that are good for you.
I mean, if I eat home made fried chicken everyday, you can bet your ass I'm not gonna live very long.
But that's total nonsense. Everything in our physical world (including water, air, food, and human bodies) is made of chemicals. They can be naturally occurring or artificially manufactured.
Is it really pedantic? Everything is ultimately a chemical compound. H2O is a chemical. Where do you draw the line between "chemicals" and "not chemicals"? Is it more about what you can find in nature? You can find acetone in nature.
yeah, this is kind of a definitional example of pedantry. you probably understand what people are trying to say when they talk about "chemicals" but instead of engaging with the actual conversation, you spin off a metanarrative to pick apart the word choice as if that's directly relevant to the point they're trying to discuss.
not trying to pick on you specifically, because sure everything's a chemical, and i don't really care to fight about that, but you asked :)
I think it's actually a great example of very very important non-pedantry. The entire crux of their argument/issue is dependent on their definition of "chemicals". I would even go so far as to say it's just the nature fallacy in disguise.
With the nature fallacy, the definition (or more like the lack of) of what is natural is the entire crux of it. In both cases (natural and "non-chemical") it's the very non-defined-ness that reveals the problem with it: You cannot create a sensible definition.
For nature, what's the definition that puts "rape" and "artificial insulin" on the morally correct side?
For chemical, what's the definition that puts "fortification with iodine, flouride, or whatevers in flour" and "arsenic" on the right side?
"Chemical" is just a really, really vague and poor word choice. I honestly don't understand what people are trying to say when they use it. Food and chemistry are inextricably intertwined. You can't even talk about food without talking about all of the various components food is made up of. Not a single food item out there isn't made up of chemicals. Some found in nature, some created in a lab or factory process. Some healthy, some not. Some with long names, some with short names. Some have effects on food taste, longevity, appearance. Some are inert. It's really a meaningless word to use in the context of one's food.
>I honestly don't understand what people are trying to say when they use it
Like, banana-flavoured milk product vs banana yogurt - seed oil and potato starch compound with artificial flavorings vs REAL milk yoghurt with REAL banana.
It tastes different, it has different nutritional value and overall "chemical" product feels scammy because it tries to mimic proper one.
This is all about words, like, why do we use "Artificial" in Artificial Intelligence?
What is real banana? How much processing is allowed for it to be still real? Considering the selective breeding of banana, is banana even still real?
Chemical is just a bad word choice. Artificial, or ultra processed get closer to the issue. They still are vague with a lot of grey area. If you cook at home, you're also highly processing your food. The fruit in winter is likely also artificial, in some sense: Grown against the will of god/nature with pesticides, in a tent, in a climate that doesn't naturally feature them, devoid of flavour because they were artificially bred for yield, color and size, etc.
>What is real banana? How much processing is allowed for it to be still real? Considering the selective breeding of banana, is banana even still real?
This is arbitrary subjective qualifier, goes somewhere between "isoamyl acetate" flavoring chemical and organic wild forest bananas. I would subjectively say that any grown bananas is REAL while isoamyl acetate made by rectification of amyl acetate is not REAL banana.
I'd be a little wary of these numbers as regulation around advertising these kinds of figures normally permits mass balance systems[0] (which imo is tantamount to straight-up lying).
Mass balance is better than nothing I guess, & I understand the practical challenges with going further, but ultimately it's not what's implied by the marketing.
Just stating the obvious that not buying one of these things that we never seemed to need until they told us we needed it is the only way to have "the environment in mind".
This feels like a good tradeoff as far as gadgets go. It doesn’t take finding that many objects for it to make up the energy cost to manufacture the AirTag.
They do require periodic battery replacements but I imagine it’s still a net savings or pretty negligible cost. I’d love to see a more formal analysis, though.
Just stating the obvious that not buying one of these thing that we never seemed to need until they told us we needed it
I never thought I needed one until my wife lost her car keys, and the Fiat dealer charged $1,200 for a replacement.
And it's not even the electronics that makes them so expensive. Modern car keys aren't like the 1970's where it's just a piece of metal with the edges shaved off. Those little key cutting kiosks at Home Depot can't cope with today's complex engraving.
I'm no material scientist, but this seems pretty impressive to me that Apple's economy of scale can pull this off, and upgrade the device capabilities, for less than $30 USD.