Take Control of Find My and AirTags (Version 1.4.1)

Take Control of Find My and AirTags takes you inside Apple’s Find My ecosystem. Once a way to track the whereabouts of your iPhone by having it ping the internet at regular intervals, now Find My encompasses sharing and following people (with permission), much of Apple’s hardware and some Beats audio gear, and new trackers from Apple and third parties (including the AirTag). This book helps you understand how it all fits together, and how to keep yourself safe by preventing, identifying, and blocking unwanted tracking.

Since the introduction of Find My iPhone over a decade ago, Apple has made it possible to Find My Nearly Everything. The current ecosystem encompasses people, Apple devices, and low-power, long-life trackers. Take Control of Find My and AirTags takes you through the many parts of Find My so you can configure and refine how you and your stuff is tracked and shared.

The book looks at three different kinds of tracking

People: Learn how to share your location safely, follow others who let you, and send and receive notifications about arrivals and departures.
Devices: Apple lets you track the whereabouts of your and Family Sharing group members’ iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, Watch, AirPods (all models), and Beats audio hardware (some models). Get to know the ins and outs of enabling Find My and taking remote actions, from playing a sound to wiping your data from a device.
Items: Find out how AirTags make use of the crowdsourced network of other people’s Apple devices to help you find a lost or forgotten purse, backpack, or even car, and about third-party devices licensing the technology from Apple.
Also get to know the dangers of Find My stalking and how to identify the risk, deter unwanted tracking from happening, block it if you find it—and report it to law enforcement or get other help.

The book also digs into how Family Sharing interacts with personal and device location sharing and finding, and how to help other people find their lost stuff if they don’t have one of their own Apple devices handy.

Covered operating systems are iOS and iPadOS versions 13 through 16, and macOS 10.15 Mojave through macOS 13 Ventura—and all the new options introduced in the latest releases of each.