Find My… Tile?

While we’re sure Apple’s much-rumoured AirTags are still on the horizon, it looks like they won’t be the only tracking devices that will be able to take advantage of the powerful crowdsourcing network that Apple began building into its devices last year.

With iOS 14, Apple will in fact be opening that network up entirely to any third-party developer who wants to plug into it. Traditionally, developers have had to rely on their own apps and crowdsourced networks, which meant that if you lost a Tile tag, it could only be located by somebody else using the Tile app. With Apple’s Find My network, however, that effectively gets expanded to anybody on the planet who has a recent iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch — an order of magnitude wider than even the most popular third-party item location networks.