Apple is releasing a Find My AirPods feature
If you own a pair of AirPods, inevitably, one is going to
go missing. Fortunately, Apple is releasing some basic measures to help
you find a lost earbud, if not the entire case.
The Wall Street Journal reports
that Apple is adding AirPods support to the Find My iPhone app with the
release of iOS 10.3, which is supposed to launch to the public in the
coming weeks.
Inside the app, AirPods owners will be able to see either
the current or last known location of their headphones (although it
seems like Apple will determine that based on where the case was
last seen, not the actual earbuds). That location data is going to be
pretty broad, so it’ll really only be good for confirming whether your
AirPods are at home or got left behind at work or a coffee shop — it’s
not granular enough to say where within your home they might be.
To help out with the trickier issue of locating missing
headphones that have been separated from their case, Apple is able to
blast sound out of each earbud (so long as it has some remaining power).
That’s by no means an assurance that you’ll find a lost earbud,
especially if you drop it outside, but it could be pretty helpful if one
goes missing around the house.
It’s good to see Apple release something like this, as
there was obviously a demand for it. Someone created a “find my AirPods”
app shortly after the earbuds were released — but Apple pulled the app from its App Store for unstated reasons.
That app actually went a step further in trying to help
you locate a lost earbud, using Bluetooth signal strength to let you
know if you’re getting warmer or colder in your search for the missing
device. It wasn’t a perfect method either, but it may have been a
helpful option if blasting music out of them isn’t working.
The article was published on : theverge
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