Revamped Find My iPhone app may get Tile-like item tracker

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Tile will speak out against Apple in Congress antitrust hearing
A Tile tracking tag can be used find lost items. Apple is reportedly designing a rival.
Photo: Tile

Find My iPhone and Find My Friends are currently separate applications, but Apple is reportedly going to merge them in future versions of iOS and mac OS, and add useful features.

In addition, the company is supposedly developing its own tracker tag that will apparently compete with Tile.

Find My Everything

The new combined app, code-named “GreenTorch,” will start with all the features of the two current versions, according to 9to5Mac. That includes mapping family and friends who’ve shared their locations, notifications when they leave or arrive at a destination, sharing your location with friends, etc.

This same software will help users find their iPhone, iPad, AirPods, and other gear. Apple is supposedly adding the ability to find devices when they aren’t connected to a Wi-Fi or cellular network. This likely includes the use of Bluetooth, though the sources for this unconfirmed information didn’t specify that..

Apple competing with Tile

Speaking of finding items with Bluetooth, Apple is allegedly creating its own tracker tag that seems very similar to a Tile.

In addition to helping users find any item they attach a tag to, the user can receive an alert if they start to get too far away from a tag. If a tagged item is lost, the owner can be notified if any iPhone user passes near it.

The source for this information on this upcoming software and hardware is unnamed “people familiar with its development,“ according to 9to5Mac. An official announcement of these features, if they turn out to be real, should come at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference in early June.

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