I left my AirPods in a Hertz rental car at the Atlanta airport. I registered them on the lost & found website and using the same tech as an AirTag, I watched them sit at the rental car terminal for weeks. Once (after*) the 30 day lost & found period expired, they went to one nearby house and then to a second nearby house. The second looked abandoned on Google street view. I had blocked them with Apple’s “Find My” app and reported them missing, so anyone trying to connect would see they were reported missing and also see my contact info. I even sent an email to a person at the first house, found with some Internet searching, and offered a reward. Over the weeks, the AirPods were being charged. Eventually they went off the “radar” and I had to replace them.
If anyone had cared, it’s possible those houses were full of other “lost” items from airport travelers.
I recently received a phone call telling me they had found an iPad I lost several years ago in another country. The person who called found it in a lost and found plugged it in and saw my number.
Somehow the place where I left it couldn’t be bothered for all those years until this person came along.
Sometimes people are malicious, other times they’re just lazy.
I’ve been that person who asks “How long has this been here? …So has anyone done anything about it?” and always the explanation was that everyone thought it was someone else’s job.
I wish Apple could lock AirPods to your Apple ID, would instantly make them worthless for stealing. Same as they do for iPhones with activation lock. If you tried to pair them to another user's iPhone, it should immediately say the headphones are stolen and your location has been transmitted to the owner.
In theory. In reality it is probably Apple who is in control and the account owner is asking Apple nicely to put their device onto that list when (and only when) they ask.
I'm sure you could do this with clever cryptography by uploading your public key to the device when you first set it up then signing an attestation of wanting to lock it but this is probably not how it works.
I could spend all day worrying about what in theory could happen. Or I could just trust that it works the way it always has and when Apple violates my trust, I’ll just never buy their products again. And I’m only out around $200 for a pair of AirPods.
>Can't wait for people pairing their ipods to a friend phone ...
They already do it for Apple tv+ (like every other modern web based service). When you login on a new device, they send a code to your phone. Enter the code, click "remember device" if you own it or leave it if it's your friend's, done. Either way, you get an alert with the location of the login. No reason we can't have this for hardware.
To be fair, when you lose something, you're not only at the mercy of the person who finds it (if they do), but you're also asking a complete stranger to do something for you.
If I have time I could drive across town to deliver something to you, if I don't I'll leave it there.
I think the problem is at different level: manufacturers do not actually care that items are retured because they profit from the replacement. This is much worse actually for well insured items like cars. Otherwise it would be easy to set up reward systems for returning lost items. If you like conspiracy theories: I would claim that airtags (e.g. installed on cars) have lead to more 'lost' value than recovered.
> I watched them sit at the rental car terminal for weeks
Do you mean that the car rental office actually did find your AirPods and kept them in their office for 30 days? It sounds like that's what you mean since you say that the AirPods moved only after "the 30 day lost & found period expired".
So if that's the case, why wouldn't they mail them back to you? Did they deny having them? If they were intent of keeping them, why would they bother holding them at the car terminal for 30 days?
No idea. It’s just their location didn’t change until after the lost & found period had expired. Perhaps they sat in the car.
When I got the car, which is all self-service, there was a confusion with the registration and I had to bring it back and choose another. So it’s possible the first car couldn’t drive until they got the correct plates or whatever.
If anyone had cared, it’s possible those houses were full of other “lost” items from airport travelers.