Your iPhone is going all James Bond! Will catch spy AirTags easily but with ONE caveat

Your iPhone is about to become a James Bond-style gadget! No kidding! Apple is working on an upcoming update for fixing some of the privacy issues regarding its troubled AirTag trackers. Basically, if you have spy AirTag on you, your iPhone will be able to point it out easily. Your iPhone will now tell you sooner about such a mysterious AirTag travelling with you, and will also make that tracker sound louder so as t locate it easily. However, there’s a big caveat!

You see, the AirTag was designed to work perfectly with the iPhone 11 and newer models. Hence, the new updates will help you stay safe only if you own any of the newer iPhones with the UWB chip. That means the new AirTag safety measures will work only if you have an iPhone 11, iPhone 12, or any of the iPhone 13 models. If you are using an iPhone SE, or an older iPhone model, you are out of luck.

Apple strengthens AirTag privacy

“AirTag was designed to help people locate their personal belongings, not to track people or another person’s property, and we condemn in the strongest possible terms any malicious use of our products. Unwanted tracking has long been a societal problem, and we took this concern seriously in the design of AirTag,” says Apple.

“Apple has been working closely with various safety groups and law enforcement agencies. Through our own evaluations and these discussions, we have identified even more ways we can update AirTag safety warnings and help guard against further unwanted tracking,” adds the official blog.

Other than early notifications for stray AirTags on you and a louder beeping, Apple has also equipped the supported iPhones with better algorithms to pin-point such stray AirTags with ease. “iPhone 11, iPhone 12, and iPhone 13 users will be able to use Precision Finding to see the distance and direction to an unknown AirTag when it is in range. As an iPhone user moves, Precision Finding fuses input from the camera, ARKit, accelerometer, and gyroscope to guide them to the AirTag through a combination of sound, haptics, and visual feedback.

Additionally, Apple will warn new AirTag users for using new AirTag trackers responsibly while setting it up. Apple has also worked law enforcement agencies to locate owners of stray AirTag trackers by sharing paired account details and serial numbers.