Google’s Working on a Competitor to Apple’s Expansive Find My Network

Apple built an enviable ecosystem with its Find My network and new AirTag trackers. The new AirTags are among the best trackers on the market, and Find My is constantly evolving, with Apple adding new features and support for new devices over time. It’s not surprising to learn that Google may be preparing its own device tracking service for its Android devices.

According to XDA Developers, Google may exploit its Google Play services, which like iCloud, is built into almost every Android device. The tech giant today rolled out the latest version of Google Play Services 21.24.13 for its beta developers and buried inside the code are some strings that describe a not-yet-seen-before device location feature.

According to beta code, this “Find My Device” network would allow “your phone to locate your and other people’s devices.”

Google already has a Find My Device app in the Google Play store, but this service is limited to finding devices that are logged into your Google account. The new code string in Google Play Services suggests the service would go beyond personal devices and could be used to find devices from other Android owners.

Google has an extensive network of Android devices that span the globe, and almost all of them run the Google Play Service. Just like Apple, Google could leverage this network to help find lost or stolen devices.

Specific details on how Google could implement this technology are not yet known. We assume but do not know whether Google plans to introduce an AirTag competitor. Google better be fast, though, as Apple is allegedly working on bringing its AirTags to the Google ecosystem.