iPhone

The iPhone is a smartphone from Apple that runs the iOS mobile operating system. Between its apps, communication features, the camera, mobile internet access, and other functionalities, the iPhone has quickly become an integral part of many peoples tech lives.

How to Share an AirTag With Someone Else

Wednesday September 16, 2026 10:11 am EAT by Emily Long

For each Find My item, you can opt to share with up to five other people. Apple expanded this in late 2024 with Share Item Location, a secure way to create an expiring link for a lost item that you can share with “airlines and trusted people.”

The sharing limit of up to five other people matches Family Sharing group limits, which can have six people total, but you don’t have to share with others if you’re in a group.

Accepting a Find My item sharing invitation means you won’t be notified in the future when the item is near you. Conversely, you will always be able to see the item in your Items list.

Apple lets you share an AirTag only with someone who uses a phone number or email address associated with an Apple Account, or a contact in your address book that contains an Apple Account-linked phone number or email address.

Share an AirTag

Go to the Find My app and click or tap the Items button.
Select a Find My item.
On a Mac, click the More button in macOS 27, or the Info button in macOS 26 or earlier.
Click or tap Add Person beneath Share This AirTag/item.
Apple alerts you about the risks and benefits of sharing a Find My item.
Click or tap Continue to proceed, or Not Now or Cancel to exit.
In the Share Item view, you see all your contacts. You can:
- Click or tap a contact that is shown in blue. That indicates an Apple Account-linked element in the contact. (Gray entries have already been added.)
- Click or tap the plus button to view the full contacts list and search within it. These entries are not color guided for Apple Account.
- At the To: prompt, start entering a phone number or email address. You’ll see matching contacts until you pass a point at which there is no match.
Click or tap the blue checkmark button..

The person you selected appears with a Pending label until they accept. You can click or tap their entry to withdraw the invitation. This item now appears under the oddly named Items I Shared label in Find My.

If you tap a gray entry in the contacts list or try to add someone through another means whose email or phone number lacks a link to an Apple Account, Find My displays an alert that the person isn’t eligible for sharing. I’ve also seen a bug in which nothing happens—a brief stutter and no error—but that person is not added.

When someone shares an item with you

If you’ve had an item shared with you, the shared item appears under Items Shared With Me. Find My reveals the same information as the owner sees on their own devices. On the item’s sheet of actions, click or tap the owner’s name to view the contact associated with them. If you want to stop the item being shared with you, click or tap Remove at the bottom of its detailed view and then, after being told the owner can still track it and you’ll get notifications again when it’s near, click or tap Remove to complete the process.

For someone who has accepted, tap or click their name in the item’s sheet. This presents a simple dialog that lets you tap or click View Friend to show them in Find My’s People view if they’ve shared their location with you; or, you can tap or click Remove and confirm removing their permission to see the item. Click Cancel to exit or tap outside the dialog on an iPhone or iPad.

Share contact details instead

If you want to provide more information to someone finding something of yours, you can use Show Contact Info. Also found under Lost AirTag or Lost Item, the Show Contact Info item lets you add either your phone number or an email address. See what someone sees when they find your lost device.

If you cannot share an item

If you want to share an item and can’t—either sharing it to someone or accessing a shared invitation—it may be one of these reasons:

Both the sharer and recipient must be running at least iOS 17, iPadOS 17, or macOS 14.
You can view shared items, but not initiate sharing, on an Apple Watch.
Only people with the 26.2.1 or later releases of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, or watchOS can view shared 2nd-generation AirTags. See AirTag 2 vs AirTag.

Stop sharing an AirTag

If you’re the owner of an AirTag and no longer want to share it, you can stop sharing in Find My.

Go to the Find My app on your iPhone.
Tap Items , tap the name of the item you’re sharing, then tap .
Tap the name of the person you’re sharing it with.
Tap Stop Sharing, then tap Stop Sharing again.

The person you were sharing with no longer sees the AirTag’s location, but may still get tracking notifications when the AirTag is moving with them.

Tags: Find My, iOS, iPadOS

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How Apple and Google Detect an Unwanted AirTag

Wednesday September 16, 2026 9:02 am EAT by Moses Johnson

Efforts to find unknown AirTags and other trackers received a big boost with an industry standard released in 2024 by Apple and Google. Called Detecting Unwanted Location Trackers (DULT), the two companies have implemented it in their ecosystems.

A few other companies expressed initial support for this specification, but only Chipolo and Pebblebee have incorporated the required features into aspects of their apps and hardware that aren’t part of the Apple Find My and Google Find Hub requirements. The rest of the industry has fallen down entirely—but lacks effective crowdsourced tracking due to a small installed base.

One of the only significant elements of the standard that wasn’t part of Apple’s existing framework is a requirement that each ecosystem’s operator requires an email address and phone number from a tracker’s registered user, which wasn’t necessarily the case across all current crowdsourced trackers.

When someone discovers or is alerted to a tracker near them, an app can access those details. Both the email address and the phone number are masked. The spec explains the reasoning:

The specification explains the reasoning. In many cases the person being tracked already knows the tracker’s owner. An obfuscated email address or phone number gives a victim “some level of information on the owner”. It also protects owners merely separated from their property.

Makers must maintain a database of serial numbers and associated phone numbers and email addresses under this proposal, and provide the registered details to law enforcement on request—no subpoena or other judicial process required. However, there’s also no process noted for how the email and phone number are validated. We know that Apple associates your Apple Account information with an AirTag and Find My items, and those require validation.

This raises some privacy concerns. On the one hand, we should preserve our digital and real-world privacy as much as possible, and Apple has been a stalwart defender of our rights against companies and governments in that regard.

However, on the other hand, when there’s clear evidence of potential criminality and the likelihood of harm or violence—like someone finding a tracking device they don’t own placed in their stuff—making information available to police with proper credentials to pursue the tracking person seems desirable. The issue in practice will be how well companies mediate providing government access to the tracker registration database.

How the Google stalking alerts differ

When Google announced their Find Hub Bluetooth tracking devices in 2024, they explained that crowdsourced relaying of location would be much more restricted than with Apple’s network:

A tracker’s location is relayed only when it’s in what Google calls a high-traffic area, like an airport, café, “busy footpaths,” or public transit. This prevents location tracking in places like homes or on a solo bike ride or drive.
If you let Google know your home address via your Google Account (a wasp’s nest of privacy issues, to be sure), any Android device you have won’t relay location information for trackers when you’re in or near your home.
A tracker’s owner can’t continuously request the device’s location. Google hasn’t provided details, but says they “rate limit” and “throttle” requests, as most lost items remain in stationary locations.

These are excellent additions to the privacy and safety arsenal that I hope Apple ultimately adopts as well.

What the reports actually showed

An odd report came from the York Regional Police in Ontario, Canada, in December 2021: car thieves were using AirTags to track down and steal cars. The police said they found AirTags used to “mark” expensive vehicles in public locations (and offered a photo of one instance) so that thieves could locate them later in easier-to-steal locations, like a public street or driveway.

Following this report, news media and other police departments issued a flurry of accounts of both car thieves and stalkers using AirTags. Some reports are sketchy; some lead with a strong headline, but then note that it was probably a false positive. In one case, a 17-year-old discovered her mother was tracking her. How prevalent is this, really?

Apple responded to these reports and others on Feb. 10, 2022, with a statement called “An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking.” Along with a host of improvements, nearly all rolled out in 2022, Apple also noted, “Based on our knowledge and on discussions with law enforcement, incidents of AirTag misuse are rare; however, each instance is one too many.” (Apple also updated their unwanted tracking support document.)

For a period, the phenomenon seemed to disappear, in 2023 and 2024. However, I’ve seen a new resurgence of reporting. The scope of the issue is impossible to gauge.

Police suggest the reverse use

Many police and sheriff’s departments suggest turning AirTags around: to help recover cars and be aware of thefts, law-enforcement groups suggest sticking an AirTag in your car. In fact, after a huge surge in thefts of certain Kia and Hyundai models due to a security flaw, the New York City mayor gave out 500 AirTags donated by a nonprofit to residents in heavily affected areas. Police warn, however, not to try to recover your own car; this has led to deaths and injury.

Regardless of how often AirTags are misused, Apple suggests contacting law enforcement if you feel endangered. All Find My items provide a little help here, as you can connect to a webpage associated with the item and see the last four digits of the phone number associated with the device. You may recognize the number, or the police may use it to track down the person who is tracking you.

An AirTag makes it easy: you tap or hold the AirTag near anything with an NFC reader, and it prompts with a webpage link. For other devices, a finder has to go through a multi-step process (see how to identify an AirTag you have found).

Where to get help

There are many organizations beyond law enforcement eager to help people trapped in situations of domestic abuse or child subject to violence and an unsafe environment. For adults in the United States, that includes the National Domestic Violence Hotline; for children or those concerned about their welfare in the United States and Canada, the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline.

For those being stalked, one starting point is Safehope. It’s more likely you will need the help of police or federal authorities. Local police departments have their own paths to navigate, but for online or cyber stalking, it may be better to start with the FBI.

If the person you are worried about may be watching your device, use one they cannot see. Removing a tracker or turning off sharing can be noticed, and advocates warn that it can make a situation worse rather than better, so it is worth talking to someone before you act.

Tags: Find My, iOS, iPadOS

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The Complete Guide to Every iOS 27 Feature

Wednesday September 16, 2026 9:05 am EAT by Kevin Hollington

Apple tends to release operating system changes as a two-beat sequence, like our heart going LUB-dub: The LUB beat is a major flex, like the introduction of Liquid Glass across all their operating systems in 2025. This year is a “dub,” a building-or-rebuilding year, in which Apple largely tweaks the previous cycle and offers incremental improvements, though some may feel quite large.

The 2026 set of releases, numbered 27—like car models are numbered in fall for the following year—is a “dub.” We see the rollout of the long-promised Siri upgrade, called Siri AI. Along with its improved performance, Siri AI and Apple Intelligence both extend much more deeply into apps and system functions across nearly all platforms. That’s the flagship feature.

Our iOS 27 guide follows the order you will actually meet those changes: the upgrade itself, then Siri AI, then Apple Intelligence inside the apps, then the interface that changed under you, and so on through to the apps and Apple Pay. Two further sections cover what comes after — keeping the phone safe, and finding it again if it goes missing.

This is a comprehensive guide with all of our coverage, and it’s a useful resource for iPhone and iPad users new to iOS 27 or those who might want a recap on what’s new.

Before you upgrade

Upgrading your device should be a cinch. But iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 have minimum hardware requirements. You won’t be able to upgrade any iPhone or iPad that isn’t a supported model. There are further limitations to using Apple Intelligence, which requires certain processor features and applies only to a subset of iPhones and iPads that can install iOS 27 and iPadOS 27.

The Siri AI guide

Siri spent years seeming like it didn’t quite fit the level of quality Apple aspires to. Worse, the company announced capabilities it wasn’t able to release, and features that have disappointed. You can tell this wasn’t just users carping: more than one head of the Siri effort has left the company altogether.

Apple Intelligence was more of a success, if limited. The company, making use of mostly on-device computation, focused their use of Apple Intelligence on specific tasks within apps or systemwide. I think many of these attempts were boring or unnecessary: generating custom emojis, Image Playground for slightly icky picture generation, and the global Writing Tools, which were worse than many previous generations of non-AI-based assistants.

Apple Intelligence inside the apps

In the iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 updates, Apple expanded the use of Apple Intelligence across more apps and added features to apps that already had some Apple Intelligence support. Apple Intelligence is designed to synthesize information, like creating summaries, as well as generate stuff, such as text or images. Some of the elements are distinctly more useful than others.

The interface changed under you

Few interface changes Apple has made have been more criticized than their introduction of Liquid Glass in their version 26 operating system releases; few have been more praised than bringing a full-featured windowing environment to iPadOS 26.

Apple has learned from both changes and added maturity to them. Liquid Glass can now be practically disabled—almost turned off with Reduce Transparency—while the iPad received many more minor changes that are welcome, but not critical.

Setting it up for children

Over the last few years, Apple has released a number of features that parents can use for children that are aimed at reducing two categories of risk: use of apps parents disapprove of, activities parents want to discourage or limit, and spending money online; and exposure to unwanted contact, images, and videos, as well as preventing children from being able to make unfettered connections or send material to arbitrary people.

Accessibility

Accessibility is a catch-all term for a large number of features, apps, and adjustments that Apple designs to improve access to kinds of things that may be harder for some people, whether due to motor limitations, eyesight or hearing, or the language they speak.

Many of these features can benefit a much larger group of people than any narrowly defined as “disabled”; automatic, high-quality captioning of video content is a great example, as is having a voice read text aloud from webpages or describe images.

Communications

Following significant overhauls to their three communications apps in iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26—FaceTime, Messages, and Phone—Apple has relaxed a bit with changes in the 27 series of releases. Here’s what you should pay attention to.

The apps, one by one

Beyond the big changes, many apps in iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 received smaller tweaks or modest new features.

Apple Pay and Wallet

Apple also made one systemwide change so far that I can tell you about, with big updates to Apple Pay and point-of-sale payments.

Keeping it safe

An upgrade is a good moment to check the settings you set once and then forget. These come from a separate guide to securing Apple devices rather than from the iOS 27 release notes, so they apply whichever version you are running.

Finding your things

Find My changed in iOS 27, and the AirTag hardware changed with it. This section covers the whole system: devices, people, and the trackers you attach to your things.

Tags: iOS 27, iPadOS 27

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How to Track Lost Luggage With an AirTag

Wednesday September 16, 2026 8:07 am EAT by Tyler Stephen

Apple lets you create a link you can share beyond the maximum of five people who can have continuous shared access. You can create a link to track an item that you can share with anyone.

The link expires after seven days, or you can disable it manually. It immediately stops working as soon as you are within Bluetooth range of the AirTag or Find My item, or if someone you shared the link with is close to it. Airlines have also added a way to use this link for baggage traffic, either for normal use or when your baggage is misplaced.

This requires at least iOS 18.2/iPadOS 18.2 or 15.2 Sequoia on your sharing device and the person who wants to view the link.

Create the AirTag luggage link

Share Item Location under Lost AirTag or Item is the pathway to obtain this link. Tap or click that label to start. First, you’re given a disclosure about what someone with the URL will see. If the item is nearby, you can’t obtain this URL and see an alert about it. Otherwise, tap or click Continue.

Find My generates a URL on a screen labeled Item Location Ready to Share. Tap or click the copy button to copy the URL or tap or click Share Link to use an option on the share sheet.

Apple continues to preserve end-to-end Find My item privacy, even when you’re sharing a link. In fine print, Find My notes, “At least one of your iPhone, iPad, or Mac devices needs to be online to provide updated locations.” That’s because the only way to retrieve the crowdsourced location is via one of those devices.

After the link is created, you can return to the same location to copy the URL. If you want to stop sharing, tap or click Stop Sharing Item Location. Disabled links can’t be reused: Apple generates unique links for each shared item every time.

What the other person sees

If the recipient has an iPhone, iPad, or Mac with an operating system recent enough to support Find My item sharing, the link—labeled Find Lost Item in some contexts, such as when sent via Messages—will prompt to open in the Find My app. Tap or click Continue in Find My. In the Find My app, you see an alert that lost items appear only when viewed in this fashion; tap or click Continue. Finally, you see the item tracked.

For people opening the link on any device other than a supported Apple one, they are taken to a webpage that automatically updates when the item’s reported location changes.

Share the link wisely! Anyone in possession of the link can use it to track the item’s current location for as long as the link is valid.

Once an item is found, Apple automatically disables the links and notifies the lost item’s owner.

Give the link to an airline

Share Item Location can also be used in a privacy-protecting way with airlines and baggage-handling services to report a missing or delayed bag. Apple said 50 airlines had signed on to support the feature. The last count, as of February 2026, was that 36 were online, including American, Delta, and United in the United States, along with major airlines worldwide. However, there’s no official list.

Apple says that safeguards will be in place at airlines so that only a limited number of people with authenticated logins can view shared tracking information.

If your bag is delayed on a supported airline:

In a native Find My app, use the process above to generate a shared item link.
Open the airline’s iPhone or iPad app or go to their website. Find the delayed-baggage form.
In the field labeled Find My in some variation, paste the URL.

Because the 2nd-generation AirTag requires version 26.2.1 or later of Apple’s operating systems to use this kind of item tracking, it is possible that some airlines and baggage-handling services still don’t support these newer trackers. Big organizations tend to lag in updating their devices. I haven’t heard any reports, however.

Tags: Find My, iOS, iPadOS

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How to Reset an AirTag Before Giving It Away

Wednesday September 16, 2026 7:25 am EAT by Abigail Shilets

AirTags and other accessories are locked to the phone they’re paired with. Apple calls this Find My Lock instead of Activation Lock, which is available for Apple devices, like iPhones and Macs. (See how Activation Lock protects a lost or stolen device.)

You can remove an AirTag from an Apple Account using the native Find My app but only on an iPhone or iPad linked to your iCloud account. You cannot use a Mac to remove a Find My item pairing; Apple has not explained why.

Go to the Find My app, tap the Items button, tap the AirTag, and at the bottom of the sheet with actions, tap Remove. Apple lets you know this means someone else can use it by pairing it. Apple also alerts you with shared items about others being unable to see it after removal.

If the AirTag is within Bluetooth range of the device you’re using to remove it from your Apple Account, it is automatically reset and ready to be paired with another device. Otherwise, it has to be physically reset after removal. Apple has instructions in a support document, but I found them a little difficult to follow in their formulation.

An AirTag remains connected to its paired device and unusable with another device until or unless it is removed from your Apple Account. Resetting it has no effect on pairing.

I highly recommend avoiding purchasing used AirTags or Find My items, as there’s no way for a seller to provide an assurance that the item has had its Find My Lock removed. At worst, only buy from a source that promises a full refund and free return, including shipping costs, if the item can’t be used.

I’ve sometimes found I have to restart my iPhone to re-pair an AirTag with it after removing it.

Here’s what I hope is a clearer sequence:

Reset your AirTag

Remove the back cover: Holding the glossy white front, push down to twist the metal back panel counter-clockwise. It only needs to move a small distance before the cover pops off.
Remove the battery: Inside, you’ll see its small coin cell battery. Remove the battery, making note of the right side up: the + sign on the battery will always face you.
Press in a sequence: This next step may seem peculiar, because the back cover remains off. Put the battery back in place and then press down lightly. The AirTag makes a faint bleep. Repeat this four times: remove the battery so it makes no contact, put it back in, press it lightly, and wait for a sound. The fifth time you do this, the sound will be slightly different. That means the reset operation completed successfully.
Reattach back cover: Now you can look at the cover to see the extended tabs and align those with the hole in the top. Press in and then rotate the cover clockwise against its top until it’s firmly in place.

The small size of the AirTag, its cover, and the battery within are all choking hazards for small children or pets. If you have either or have visitors with them, keep track of loose AirTags or parts.

Now you can pair with another iPhone or iPad.

Stop an AirTag transmitting

Removing an AirTag from an account stops it from relaying location data. However, if you want the device to stop sending any signal, remove the cover and the battery.

In a pinch, you can disable an AirTag’s or third-party item’s capability to transmit its signal by wrapping it in aluminum foil or putting it in a bag designed to block electromagnetic fields (a so-called Faraday cage). These items emit fairly weak Bluetooth signals, so the foil approach will, uh, foil attempts to track you if you can’t figure out how to remove the battery or you want to leave the device intact to give to law enforcement.

You can find advice all over the internet about how to disable the sound-producing part of an AirTag. I won’t link to any such advice, and I recommend you avoid it in nearly all cases. Why? Because the intent isn’t, as often stated on these webpages, how to keep an AirTag from bothering you. Rather, it’s clearly advice on producing a more effective electronic stalker. (Apple also may have made it harder to remove the sound-producing component in the 2nd-generation AirTag, but the company declines to discuss that.)

You might have a perfectly good reason to dampen the sound! But in some countries (or even certain cities, states, or regions within a country), unless an AirTag is continuously within your control, disabling the intended audio alert could run afoul of privacy and anti-stalking laws and get you into real trouble. (For when this sound occurs, see what an “AirTag Found Moving With You” alert means.)

Tags: Find My, iOS, iPadOS

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How to Send Your Location by Satellite When Offline

Wednesday September 16, 2026 5:34 am EAT by Emily Long

Your device that marks your presence—the hardware that your location is indicated as to others—updates that location automatically with Apple’s services on a fairly constant basis. If you’re out of range of cellular or Wi-Fi, there’s another option to push a location update—a satellite! Very futuristic.

Apple’s satellite-data option built into the iPhone 14 and later and the Apple Watch Ultra 3 lets you send the tiny bits of information necessary via Find My when you’re otherwise offline.

The next time you’re out of range of service, you can give Send Location via Satellite a whirl.

In the Me view in the iPhone or Apple Watch Find My app (or watchOS 26 Find People app) is My Location via Satellite: tap Send My Location. Your iPhone or Ultra 3 guides you through holding it in the right position to make a satellite connection. Apple lets you send your location as frequently as every 15 minutes. Find My isn’t updated with the location of other people who have shared their location with you, however.

Send your location via satellite

You can use the Find My app to share your location via satellite if you’re not connected to a cellular or Wi-Fi network. To share your location with a friend via satellite, you must already be sharing your location with that friend in Find My. See Share your location in Find My.

Go to the Find My app on your iPhone.
Make sure that you’re outside with a clear view of the sky and the horizon. If you’re under heavy foliage or surrounded by other obstructions, you might not be able to connect to a satellite.
Tap Me .
Tap Send My Location (below My Location via Satellite), then follow the onscreen instructions.

If you need to turn left or right to connect to a satellite, your iPhone provides guidance–just follow the onscreen instructions.

Note: It may take a few minutes to send your location via satellite; continue to follow the onscreen instructions until the message is sent.

You can send your location once every 15 minutes. When you send your location via satellite, you don’t see your friend’s location in the Find My app.

See a friend’s location sent via satellite

In order to see a friend’s location sent via satellite, you need to have iOS 16.1 or later installed on your iPhone (you don’t need iPhone 14 or later).

When a contact sends you their location via satellite, a satellite icon appears next to their picture and Satellite Location appears in the text in the Find My app. Their most recent location is viewable for up to 7 days.

What it needs to work

There are some requirements:

Both you and the other party must have an iPhone 14 or later and iOS 16 or later installed, or an Apple Watch Ultra 3 (requires watchOS 26 or later paired with iOS 26 or later). The location isn’t shared to devices that don’t meet these criteria.
An iPhone you use has to be set as your “presence” device before you’re offline.
An Apple Watch Ultra 3 must have an active Wi-Fi or cellular network plan, and its paired iPhone doesn’t need to be nearby, but it must be powered on and connected to either a Wi-Fi or cellular network for the satellite process to work.
The person you send your location to must be someone you already share your location with via Find My. That has to be set up before your iPhone is unable to connect via cellular or Wi-Fi.

For more on presence and setting your phone as your primary location device, see how Find My works.

Why Apple built this at all

Apple first introduced satellite access as a safety feature, highlighting all the ways that you could use their Emergency SOS via Satellite feature. Later, Apple spent some of their dragon hoard of cash to expand their satellite network access, as they rolled out Find My, emergency roadside assistance, and iMessage over satellite. Emergency SOS via Satellite works in 18 countries as of September 2026; iMessage over satellite works in Canada, Mexico, Japan, and the United States; and emergency roadside assistance works in Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Apple originally said they would cover the cost of satellite usage for the first two years after activation, but has continued to extend the free period and hasn’t disclosed future pricing. Their current statement on all satellite-related pages reads, “It’s free for two years after the activation of an iPhone 14 or later (all models).” However, we are well past two years for many models. (My guess is it will ultimately be $10 a month and rolled into Apple One subscriptions.)

Tags: Find My, iOS

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iOS 27 Is Now Available: 10 Features to Try First

Wednesday September 16, 2026 8:18 am EAT by Dave Johnson

Apple released iOS 27 on Monday 14 September 2026, alongside iPadOS 27 and macOS 27 Golden Gate.

Below, we have highlighted ten new features and changes in iOS 27 that you should try first. These ten features are worth ten minutes on the day you upgrade. Each is visible straight away, none needs new hardware, and most take under a minute.

For everything else, see what’s new in iOS 27, or the 37 changes that owe nothing to AI.

1. Dial down Liquid Glass

When you upgrade to iOS 27 or iPadOS 27, the last stages of the installation present a new screen that lets you choose to adjust Liquid Glass using a slider. If you don’t make the adjustment at that moment, you can do so later, or change your initial choice. Go to Settings > Appearance > Liquid Glass.

This new screen offers a slider you can drag from the left edge, which Apple describes as “More Clear” (most Liquid Glass effect) across a range to the right: “More Tinted” (most opaque). Apple makes it easy to visualize by providing a scrollable preview that shows Liquid Glass elements overlaid on a webpage with images and text.

See how to reduce Liquid Glass transparency for the two accessibility settings that go further.

2. Ask Siri a real question

While Apple has rebranded Siri as “Siri AI” on supported devices and in their marketing, you won’t see that name on your devices. It’s still called Siri. But everything is affected by the availability of Apple Intelligence. Whenever you invoke Siri on an Apple Intelligence-supported device, you’re invoking Siri AI.

Siri now provides much more accurate and detailed answers than before, even reaching into other apps to provide more information. Ask it a question, and it parses the results instead of trying to squeeze them into a format it understands.

Here are the most significant things Siri AI can do that its predecessor Siri could not:

Use your data to produce better results or find things. One of the biggest ongoing complaints about Siri is that for software that ostensibly had access to our email, messages, contacts, calendar entries, photos, and other private data while running entirely on our devices, it sure didn’t know much about us. With Siri AI, you can ask, “Who did I have lunch with in 2013 in New Haven?” and it may be able to answer. (Whether that is invasive is a fair question.)
Answer questions about what’s on screen. You could be looking at a webpage, reading a Wikipedia entry, having a conversation in Messages, or writing an email, and can ask Siri for more information about or to explain something that’s visible.
Engage in a back-and-forth conversation. Siri has become something more like a chatbot, though it’s not quite as open-ended as the ones from Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and others. However, it retains context and remembers aspects of conversations to provide better insight in the future.
Create a plan. You might ask Siri to help you figure out the best sights to see in New York. Unlike chatbots that rely solely on synthesizing vast data stores, Siri can use your information, Apple’s human-made travel guides, map data, and other information to produce something that could be much more useful.
Use a Siri app. You can revisit Siri conversations using the Siri app, the first time Apple has offered that kind of interaction with Siri.

One caveat before you try it: Siri AI ships in beta. Apple has hedged on details, stating only that it will be available in beta form, and not specifying when that beta might end. It needs an iPhone 15 Pro or later. It is English-only at launch, and is not offered in the European Union or China. In the beta period you had to request access at Settings > Siri. Check there first if you do not see it.

3. Find Siri’s new home

Instead of the glow around all four edges of your device in iOS 26/iPadOS 26, Siri in iOS 27/iPadOS 27 appears as an orb at the top of the screen. The design cleverly hides the non-screen areas in Dynamic Island on the many iPhone models with that carveout.

You can bring up Siri (by default), as in previous releases, by saying “Siri” or “Hey Siri,” or by pressing and holding the side button. However, the change introduced in iOS 26 that let you double-tap the bottom of the screen is gone. Instead, you can swipe down on a Home screen to reveal the new combination of Spotlight and Siri: a field labeled Search or Ask. You can type into that field, or tap the Dictation button and talk to Siri that way.

4. Set a Separate Alarm Volume

It took this long for Apple to let you set the volume of alarms and timers hitting zero seconds separately from your ringtone volume. Settings now includes an “Alarms and Timers” section with its own Match Ringtone Volume toggle. If you toggle it off, a dedicated slider appears that allows you to drop the ringer volume to nothing, and you’ll still be woken at whatever alarm volume you choose. Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics and, under Alarms and Timers, disable Match Ringtone Volume. Drag the slider that appears to set your alarm and timer volume.

More in what’s new in Clock, Find My, Health and Podcasts.

5. Use both FaceTime cameras

After many, many years of FaceTime supporting a single camera view on iPhone, you can now use the front and back cameras simultaneously. The proviso? You need an iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, or iPhone Air and iOS 27. The other person or people can see your dual-camera feed only if they have iOS 27, iPadOS 27, or macOS 27. (This builds off the dual-capture mode in the Camera app on those models introduced in iOS 26.)

To use the dual-camera mode, in an active FaceTime session (or before someone has joined), tap the Flip Camera button in the inset selfie view. This shows both cameras by default.

If the person on the other end of the call has an older iPhone, they can still view your dual camera feed as long as their device is running iOS 27.

More in what changed in FaceTime, Messages, Phone and Wi-Fi.

6. Boost Your iPhone Wi-Fi With New Connectivity Assist Feature

Apple tried to tune up a key issue years ago with a feature they called Wi-Fi Assist: when you had a weak signal, there might be a better, higher-speed cellular connection available instead. Your device would then tap into the cell signal while the Wi-Fi signal was poor.

While Wi-Fi Assist helped, it didn’t solve the common problem you are certainly familiar with, when your iPhone won’t unclasp its Wi-Fi grasp as you walk out of one space—like your home or office—and there’s still a tendril of signal left.

Apple rebranded the feature as Connectivity Assist, and if you had Wi-Fi Assist enabled—it was by default—you’ll find the new feature already turned on in Settings > Wi-Fi.

I know how aggravating it is, because my house Wi-Fi barely reaches where we park our cars out front on the street. Whenever I try to pull up Maps for directions, I have to turn off Wi-Fi most days. Connectivity Assist promises to solve that precise issue.

7. Add keywords to photos

It took many years, but you can finally apply keywords to media in the Photos app on an iPhone and iPad. Huzzah? (Keywords are a useful way to link images for searching and organization.) However, you can still only apply keywords to items one at a time, as opposed to singly or in selections of two or more on a Mac. To add keywords, tap the info button, then tap Add Keywords.

More in keywords and Shared Albums in Photos.

8. Scan a card into Wallet

You can create entries for cards, membership cards, and other kinds of barcode/QR code-related proofs of entry or membership from scratch, a task formerly available only for third-party apps and websites.

Tap the Add button in Wallet, then tap Create a Pass. You’re guided through a few steps, one of which lets you scan the existing card, so that Wallet can pull in its number, barcode, or QR code. You can fill out details that aren’t present on the card or captured by Wallet.

More in what’s new in Apple Pay and Wallet.

9. Caption any video

Your iPhone and iPad now generate captions from any uncaptioned video you’re watching in Photos and other supported apps. (This isn’t related to tvOS or TV app captioning.) If captions already exist, you can have them automatically translated between supported languages.

More in the accessibility changes and the Action button.

10. Tap to Share at checkout

Entirely new iOS 27 feature is Tap to Share with merchants at the point of sale, such as in a store or at a fair. This makes in-person Apple Pay more akin to Apple Pay in Safari. Tap to Share lets an entire set of interactions occur before you pay. You start by approving a connection with a merchant’s iPhone that has a supported payment app. (Ostensibly, this may encompass not just companies like Square and Stripe, but in-house developer apps for retailers like Old Navy or Lowe’s.)

Once you begin, you can choose what you share with the business—like contact details, a shipping address, or your email. This also means you don’t have to state this information aloud or rely on the merchant typing it in correctly! A merchant can offer to sign you up for a membership or loyalty program. You can use a pass from the merchant, or they can issue one, related to discounts, credits, or other transaction-related purposes. Finally, you see the full cart as a digital receipt before completing payment with Apple Pay.

More in what’s new in Apple Pay and Wallet.

iOS 27 Compatible iPhones

These iPhone models are compatible with iOS 27:

iPhone 18 Pro
iPhone 18 Pro Max
iPhone Duo
iPhone 17e
iPhone 17
iPhone 17 Pro
iPhone 17 Pro Max
iPhone Air
iPhone 16e
iPhone 16
iPhone 16 Plus
iPhone 16 Pro
iPhone 16 Pro Max
iPhone 15
iPhone 15 Plus
iPhone 15 Pro
iPhone 15 Pro Max
iPhone 14
iPhone 14 Plus
iPhone 14 Pro
iPhone 14 Pro Max
iPhone 13
iPhone 13 mini
iPhone 13 Pro
iPhone 13 Pro Max
iPhone 12
iPhone 12 mini
iPhone 12 Pro
iPhone 12 Pro Max
iPhone 11
iPhone 11 Pro
iPhone 11 Pro Max
iPhone SE (2nd generation and later)

More in iOS 27

Other new features in iOS 27 include iPhone Handoff, which moves a call and a phone number between two iPhones. There is also the ability to split a bill with Apple Cash; the ability to hide your location in Find My; and more. The full list runs to 37 changes that owe nothing to AI, on top of everything else in the release.

Tags: iOS 27, iPadOS 27

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37 New Features in iOS 27 That Are Not AI

Wednesday September 16, 2026 6:58 am EAT by Chris Smith

The flagship feature of the 2026 releases is Siri AI, and Apple Intelligence extending more deeply into apps and system functions. But Apple named four other areas of focus alongside it, and three of them have nothing to do with AI at all: interface tweaks, child safety and Screen Time, and communications.

Here are 37 changes in iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 that have nothing to do with Siri AI or Apple Intelligence. For the release as a whole, including what the AI features actually do, see what’s new in iOS 27.

iOS 27 non-AI features:

1. The Liquid Glass slider, most visible of these features

The introduction of Liquid Glass across Apple’s 26 releases of their operating systems elicited a lot of responses. A whole lot. It’s hard to know how hated this new interface approach was, but given how quickly Apple backed off from it, I would have to say a lot—particularly in iOS and iPadOS, where the translucency of Liquid Glass made it hard to find interface elements and read text.

Apple reacted by adding a feature in iOS 26.1/iPadOS 26.1 to reduce its impact by letting you switch between Clear, which was the original flavor of Liquid Glass, to Tinted, which reduced translucency by a fair amount, but not to zero.

In iOS 27/iPadOS 27, Apple switched up their approach, replacing the binary option with a slider from (now lowercase) clear to tinted, along with a preview of how it looks against interface elements.

At the More Clear setting you can hardly read—or even find—a button or field over text and an image; at the midway point it’s better, but still not ideal; at More Tinted there is enough contrast for legibility. To me, it looks like what an interface designer would show an executive, expecting the executive to pick the most tinted option. Apple’s leadership didn’t do that for 26.0. In 26.1, we got a binary choice; in 27, a range of choices.

2. Turning Liquid Glass off almost entirely

Apple separately offers two Accessibility settings that affected Liquid Glass in iOS 26 and iPadOS 26. In the 27 releases, only one of the two has any real impact:

Reduce Transparency: Go to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size and enable Reduce Transparency. This flattens Liquid Glass, removing transparency and providing an almost identical look to iOS 18/iPadOS 18. The level of Liquid Glass you have enabled doesn’t have an effect.
Increase Contrast: Use Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Increase Contrast to bump up the difference in tones. In iOS 27/iPadOS 27, the difference appears slight, where it was sharply distinct in the previous releases.

You can’t change the Liquid Glass intensity when either of the next two options is enabled. When you attempt to change the Liquid Glass setting, you’re told that Reduce Transparency and Increase Contrast must be disabled. You can tap Turn Off.

3. FaceTime uses both cameras

To use the dual-camera mode, in an active FaceTime session (or before someone has joined), tap the Flip Camera button in the inset selfie view. This shows both cameras by default. You can then do something to change that.

4. Connectivity Assist drops weak Wi-Fi

Apple rebranded the feature as Connectivity Assist, and if you had Wi-Fi Assist enabled—it was by default—you’ll find the new feature already turned on in Settings > Wi-Fi.

5. AirDrop is five times faster

Also in both iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 is an AirDrop speed up. Apple says AirDrop transfers could be as much as five times faster.

6. Alarms get their own volume

It took this long for Apple to let you set the volume of alarms and timers hitting zero seconds separately from your ringtone volume. Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics and, under Alarms and Timers, disable Match Ringtone Volume.

7. Four RCS fixes in Messages

Messages received a tune-up, not an overhaul. Most change are related to RCS, the industry-supported messaging protocol that Google uses in Android. The changes are:

Outgoing messages show a send indicator so you can see progress on slower networks or with larger files.
When you’re sending large photos or videos in a conversation that uses RCS (with Android users), this no longer slows down the typing part of the conversation.
Reply threading now works with RCS messages.
RCS messages also support a wider range of tapbacks and reactions.

Apple added support for end-to-end encryption over RCS between their ecosystem and Google’s as a beta release in iOS 26.5.

8. Find My gets custom durations

The native Find My app on all platforms has two changes related to duration or availability when you share your location with other people:

Previously, you could share your location for an hour, until the end of the day, or indefinitely. Now you can set a custom period of time.
If you’re sharing your location with someone, you can hide your location from your end until the next morning (at 4 a.m., and they’re not notified. They’re also not told when you resume sharing, or “unhide” your location. They simply see you with a “location unavailable” label.

9. Hiding your location without telling anyone

This is widely seen as another tool for people facing family or intimate-partner abuse to hide their whereabouts without an abuser knowing.

10. Keywords arrive in Photos on iPhone

11. Show Selected in Photos

When you make a selection by tapping the Select button in the upper-right corner of any multiple-item view in Photos, a new Show Selected button appears at the bottom. Tap it, and it reveals just the items you chose. You can adjust the selection or view the images and videos in a carousel. Tap Deselect All to remove the current selection.

12. Two new Photos albums

Apple adds two new albums in Collections > Utilities. Captured by Me contains images or videos you created using any iPhone or iPad, such as via the Camera app or by taking a screenshot. The Identity Documents album uses machine learning (not Apple Intelligence) to collect scans or photos of personally identifying documents. (Identity Documents hasn’t yet appeared for me in iOS.)

13. Shared Albums finally upgrade

Apple hasn’t shaken up iCloud Shared Albums in several years, and it has notable omissions, such as the ability to share higher-resolution versions.

In iOS 27/iPadOS 27 (and on macOS 27 and at iCloud.com), you have access to several new features. However, you must first upgrade an album: select the album in Collections > Shared Albums, tap the More button, then tap Upgraded Shared Album. This may take some time—minutes or longer—depending on the size of the items in the library and your internet connection.

After upgrading, you have access to the following:

Full-resolution photos and videos are now supported across all common formats.
You can filter by photos or videos. Tap the Filter button, then tap Media Types.
There’s a Create Shared Album option for any existing album. Tap the More button, then tap Create Shared Album.
Albums can be set to expire after 30 days, but only when created. After creating a Shared Album from an existing album or by tapping the Add button in the Collections > Shared Albums view, enable Make Album Temporary.
You can create an upload link that allows anyone—not just people with access to the album—to upload images. With the album selected, tap the Share button, tap “Only invited people can join,” and choose Anyone with the Link. (This is similar to other kinds of sharing across iOS 27/iPadOS 27).
A recent activity log lets you see changes made to the album, including emoji reactions. (This doesn’t yet appear to be in place.)

14. Save a video frame

Three other changes, two new and one set of improvements, may be of interest.

You can extract a frame from a paused video to save as an image. Tap the More button and choose Save Video Frame.

15. Force Photos to sync now

Photos often decides to pause syncing to iCloud to avoid draining the battery, even when the battery is quite full. You can now go to Settings > Apps > Photos > Sync Immediately and choose For Today. This prioritizes syncing instead of preserving battery life for the remainder of the calendar day. If Low Power Mode or Low Data Mode are enabled, Photos will still pause until those modes are turned off, such as by recharging the phone for the former.

16. Slideshows from any album

Slideshows can now be built from any album or even a selection of media, rather than relying on memories.

17. Podcasts searches episode notes

If you navigate to a podcast’s view of all of its episodes by tapping the podcast and then tapping Episodes, you can now search against the title and show notes of all listed episodes.

This doesn’t search transcripts, which Podcasts generates for some shows. It searches only the per-episode notes published in the podcast feed.

18. Reminders actions in Shortcuts

Reminders actions now appear in Shortcuts, too, so you can create and delete groups, manage lists, and create sections.

19. Wallet builds a pass from a plastic card

Tap the Add icon in Wallet, then tap Create a Pass. You’re guided through a few steps, one of which lets you scan the existing card, so that Wallet can pull in its number, barcode, or QR code. You can fill out details that aren’t present on the card or captured by Wallet.

20. Poster-style membership cards

As you can see in the figures above, a “poster”-style card display used for passes now extends to membership cards, gift cards, and loyalty/reward cards. This new display allows up to two tappable actions.

21. Hotel keys and preauthorized payments

In unrelated updates, Wallet now shows trip details and other real-time updates to hotel keys at hotels that support these new options.

Finally, a new Preauthorized Payments section in Wallet gives you a one-stop insight into what you’ve allowed other companies to charge you for. Apple describes this as “subscriptions and auto-reloads to installment loan repayments, recurring billing, and deferred payments” among other preauthorizations.

22. Change your card mid-checkout

The updated Apple Pay checkout sheet lets you change your payment card directly without canceling, exiting, and starting over. It will also show information like available rewards, debit card balance, and alternative payment options. These changes are noted as coming “this fall,” while “later this year” you’ll be able to add funds to a debit card during a checkout session without exiting, or within Wallet.

23. Apple Pay in any browser

Apple now allows merchants to let you pay with a third-party browser using Apple Pay with a scannable code and an iPhone as the glue. Start the payment in a third-party browser, choose Apple Pay, and the merchant’s site will display a code that can be scanned by an iPhone to authorize Apple Pay.

24. Tap to Share at checkout

Entirely new is Tap to Share with merchants at the point of sale, such as in a store or at a fair. This makes in-person Apple Pay more akin to Apple Pay in Safari. Tap to Share lets an entire set of interactions occur before you pay. You start by approving a connection with a merchant’s iPhone that has a supported payment app. (Ostensibly, this may encompass not just companies like Square and Stripe, but in-house developer apps for retailers like Old Navy or Lowe’s.)

25. Screen Time, rebuilt

On the parental-restriction front, Screen Time was Apple’s most direct foray into enabling guardians to shape children’s digital access. But Screen Time is janky—there’s no better word. It is sometimes hard to configure, it often fails, and kids can work around it even when they aren’t intending to.

Screen Time was created to let parents and guardians set policies for children that were automatically enforced by Apple’s operating systems. No matter what device a child used that was logged in to the same Apple Account, Screen Time restrictions would remain the same. In practice, not so much, and it remains to be seen how well this Apple-described redesign will improve that consistency.

Screen Time controls require that you set up a Child Account, which has to be part of Family Sharing. In the past, I know that parents have sometimes created regular accounts for their children or faked their birth dates to make them older out of frustration with Screen Time and other features that didn’t work as described.

26. A setup assistant for parents

A new tool for parents helps guide them in choosing apps they want their children to have access to.

27. Ask to Browse, for websites

Apple already offered an Ask to Buy option, which let a kid send a request to the account’s owner in the Family Sharing group when they want to make an App Store purchase or download a free app. Ask to Browse builds on that, requiring that child request access to any website they haven’t previously been granted permission to use, or that a parent hadn’t already added to a list of acceptable sites.

The request is sent via Messages to the adult owner of the Family Sharing group and any other adult designated as Parent/Guardian, as you can see in the figure above. The parent or guardian can then tap or click Decline or Approve.

28. Time allowances by category

The previous Screen Time controls for setting how much time apps and other resources could be used were difficult to manage. The new ones, synced across all platforms, let a parent set Time Allowances, with separate settings for weekdays and weekends. Apple has a recommended maximum based on age that they developed in conjunction with child-development experts, they say.

Time Allowances define the total screen time permitted per day, and then are divided up into maximum amounts by category: Entertainment, Games, Social Media, and All Others. Parents can further create time windows within the days during which some categories aren’t available. Apple’s example, shown in the screenshot, is to turn off the Entertainment, Games, and Social Media categories during school hours.

This overhauled approach also gives parents a sort of dashboard for each child. They can see current usage stats. That’s also where a child’s access can be paused—i.e., cut off entirely for the moment—or they can be granted unlimited use for the rest of the day, or until a parent revokes that.

29. Blurring gore, not just nudity

Apple has gingerly expanded features in this category. In this set of releases, Apple has pushed forward just a single change. The Communication Safety feature, which is enabled by default for children 13–17, already blurs any image or video that appears to contain nudity, whether the child is receiving it or attempting to send it, across a range of Apple’s communications apps, including Messages, AirDrop, and FaceTime video messages. The blurred image comes with a warning, offering guidance on seeking help. (For children under 13, they’re also prompted to start a conversation with a parent or guardian.)

In the 27 series of releases, images and video that a screening algorithm determines contain gore or violence also trigger the blur filter and warning.

30. Accessibility Reader gets sharper

Stripping out inessential components: Accessibility Reader acts like a beefed-up version of Reader in Safari, removing ads, headers, footers, navigational elements, and other material that isn’t part of the actual webpage or app view content.

Formatting clean-up: While removing unnecessary parts, the reader also structures what remains into more easily readable elements, like headers, lists, and image captions.

Use via any app: Accessibility Reader used to require a shortcut trigger. Now, you can use the share menu in any app to open content in the reader.

More nuanced content interpretation: The reader used to strip tables and images that appeared inline. Those now show up.

Translation: There’s no need to switch to another app or use a pop-up option. Accessibility Reader can translate supported languages into other supported languages.

31. Captions generated for any video

32. Health tracks perimenopause

The big news in the Health app for iPhone is that, if you have periods, Cycle Tracking supports perimenopause and menopause by notifying you when it identifies patterns consistent with perimenopause.

Other changes worth noting include:

Health now has a Browse button (instead of a search icon), which better identifies what the action is. The design has changed from a list to a series of small color-coded cards.
iPhones now support GymKit, which was available only on Apple Watch before this. You can now pair an iPhone directly with supported treadmills, bikes, and other gym equipment.

33. Home goes 4K

The Home app now supports 4K resolution video for live streaming and recording from cameras designed for HomeKit Secure Video and with any tier of iCloud+ and that, of course, have 4K output. (Apple still uses the HomeKit name there, even though the concept has been renamed Apple Home.)

If you have more than one camera, Home used to require awkward navigation among them. Now, you can see the previews in the main Home view, but tapping any camera brings up an aggregated view with a unified set of detected events.

34. Maps improves Flyover

Apple says Maps has an “enhanced Flyover” experience. This translates to less weird-looking landscape and building interpolation from satellite and street-level data when you look at cities using Maps’s 3D perspectives.

Maps also adds Local Lists, which are ostensibly algorithmically generated guides to local areas based on aggregated searches. Apple uses the word “trending” a couple of times in describing this feature, so it’s unclear if it’s just search-related—which gives zero insight into the quality of a restaurant or an experience—or factors in other data.

35. Keyboard automations on iPad

Apple rethought the iPad interface with iPadOS 26, adding robust windowing and multitasking features that brought it much closer to a general-purpose computing system like macOS. However, it still retained its unique iPad nature, such as its heavy reliance on gestures. iPadOS 27 builds on these improvements with refinements that help you use an iPad even more fully in the liminal space between tablet and computer.

Apple previously didn’t offer a way to trigger an automation when a keyboard was connected to or removed from an iPad. This frustrated some users, who interact with their iPad differently when a keyboard is connected—such as in a dock-style environment—and when they are using only the touch screen or an Apple Pencil.

Now, you can use Shortcuts to create automations based on whether a keyboard was connected, disconnected, or the keyboard connection state changed. This includes the “Set multitasking mode to” item. You might want to switch between Full Screen Apps and Windowed Apps when using your iPad without a keyboard. You’d have to set up two shortcuts: one would trigger when the keyboard was attached; the other when detached.

36. A persistent iPad menu bar

In iPadOS 26, the menu bar had to be triggered either by swiping down from the top of the display or by hovering with a pointing device, at which point it would appear. It then hid, after a short delay, when it wasn’t in use or being hovered over.

In iPadOS 27, the default behavior appears similar, but there are two significant changes:

The app name always appears on the far-left side of the menu bar, at the upper-left corner of the screen.
To unfurl the menu bar, tap or drag over the app name.

Along with that new behavior, you can also opt to have the menu bar remain in place, persistent at all times. Go to Settings > Multitasking & Gestures, then disable Automatically Show and Hide Menu Bar.

37. iPhone apps resize on iPad

iPadOS 27 fills a missing piece in Windowed Apps, the default setting that lets you resize app windows or use them in full-screen mode. iPhone apps that haven’t been developed as universal apps for both iOS and iPadOS still floated in their own fixed-size window.

iPhone apps released for iOS 27 automatically gain the capability to be resized in iPadOS 27, just as they can work at different sizes on different iPhone models.

Tags: iOS 27, iPadOS 27

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AirTag 2 vs AirTag: What Changed in the New Model

Tuesday September 15, 2026 11:41 pm EAT by Chris Smith

Apple introduced the 1st-generation AirTag in April 2021 and replaced it with the 2nd-generation AirTag in January 2026. (As usual, there’s no numbering system.) The compact device remains priced the same as when introduced: $29 each, or a batch of four for $99. (By not raising the price since then, Apple has effectively dropped the price by 20% due to inflation.)

While Apple stopped selling the 1st-generation AirTag, you can buy them while supplies last from online retailers, which seem to identify them as 1st generation.

Apple has almost entirely abandoned model numbers for their hardware, with the exception of Apple Watch and AirPods—though even with AirPods, they use a generation number within a particular series number! The same is true with AirTags: the original AirTag is the 1st-generation AirTag (2021), and the new one is the 2nd-generation AirTag (2026). In product and sales information, the new model is simply referred to as AirTag.

If you’d like to tell the difference between the two while looking at them, you can examine the reverse. While there’s no version number, Apple printed distinct information on the plastic silver battery cover. Note that the 2nd-generation AirTag uses nearly all uppercase or capital letters, includes the IP67 designation, and omits the “Designed by/Assembled in” details.

There are four technical differences between the two generations:

Louder speaker: Apple says that the new model is 50% louder. The frequency of its chime, the sound you can trigger to locate it (see how to play a sound), is also higher-pitched (moving from an F on the chromatic scale to a G). These two changes allow it to be heard from farther away, from the inside of, or underneath things, like inside a piece of luggage or under a pile of clothing.
Greater Precision Finding distance: A 2nd-generation ultrawideband (UWB) chip that appears in the iPhone 17 series, the iPhone Air, the Apple Watch Series 11, and the Apple Watch Ultra 3 allows Precision Finding at “from up to 50 percent farther away than the previous generation,” says Apple (see how to use Precision Finding). In practice, this might mean several dozen feet (or 20 to 30 meters) compared to 30 to 50 feet (10 to 15 meters).
More powerful Bluetooth: Some features of an AirTag work only within Bluetooth range, such as playing a sound or live finding before Precision Finding kicks in, if available. The 2nd-generation AirTag has a newer Bluetooth chip that expands its range as well as allowing greater penetration through objects. Apple gives no guidance on distance, but if you could previously reach an AirTag over 150 feet (46 m), conceivably that could now be as much as 300 feet (91 m).

Bluetooth is also used to broadcast an encrypted transmission as part of the Find My network, and could improve tracking as the signal could reach more devices.

A lack of backwards compatibility: The new AirTag requires iOS 26.2.1/iPadOS 26.2.1 or later to pair with an iPhone or iPad. Once activated, iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, or watchOS 26 or later is required to track the items—maybe even the 26.2.1 release of each of those operating systems, but Apple has conflicting information. This means people using older versions of these operating systems will be unable to track an AirTag. If you have mixed generations of gear or have opted not to install some of the version 26 or 27 releases, you might see 1st-generation AirTags on some devices and 2nd-generation AirTags on others.

For most of the purposes of the rest of this book, you can consider a 1st- and 2nd-generation AirTag as interchangeable. I call out differences only where they exist.

What is inside an AirTag

An AirTag uses three different pieces of wireless technology, somewhat shocking for such a small piece of equipment:

Near-field communications (NFC): NFC allows a device to read information from an item held very near or literally tapped against the device. NFC is used to identify an AirTag: the NFC tag can be read by any smartphone with NFC technology, and triggers the display of a webpage link connected to that AirTag.

Every Apple Find My item has a unique serial number. The webpage retrieved via an NFC tap is associated with that serial number. You also can open that webpage from a link transmitted via Bluetooth after being warned that an Apple or Google item is moving with you.

The page shows the serial number and a portion of the person’s phone number registered to their Apple Account or Google Account. For more, see how Apple and Google detect an unwanted AirTag. Starting in iOS 18.2/iPadOS 18.2 and macOS 15.2 Sequoia, you can also opt to create a secure tracking link you can share with anyone that also includes email address or phone number in full. See what someone sees when they find your lost device.

Ultra-wideband (UWB): UWB is a low-power, broad-spectrum wireless technology introduced by Apple in the iPhone 11 series and Apple Watch Series 6 and later, and, for audio, starting with the charging case of the AirPods Pro (2nd generation). With the right model of iPhone or Apple Watch, you can pinpoint an AirTag or an enabled charging case with Precision Finding, which provides ranging distance and direction. Which models depend on your generation of AirTag; see how to use Precision Finding.
Bluetooth LE: A low-power version of the short-range Bluetooth standard lets AirTags announce themselves to a nearby paired iPhone or iPad and to devices that are part of the Find My network. The 2nd-generation AirTag has a more powerful Bluetooth radio.

Apple does occasionally update the AirTag firmware. However, there’s nothing you can do to force that. With whatever logic the company uses, it sends the firmware update out over Bluetooth when it detects AirTags paired with your devices that are out of date.

Size, battery and price

Apple powers the AirTag with a replaceable battery that should last a year. Both generations of AirTag are identical in dimensions and weight: 1.26 inches (32 mm) in diameter, 0.31 inches (8 mm) thick at their widest point, and 0.39 ounces (11 g).

You can personalize your order when ordering directly from Apple by adding an emoji or a few numbers or letters. You might think the emoji or text is a gimmick. But if you buy several AirTags, it can help you distinguish among them. Bonus: When you pair an AirTag, Apple shows you the emoji or text that’s printed on the item in the pairing screen! Nifty.

Tags: Find My, iOS

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How the Find My Network Tracks a Lost AirTag

Tuesday September 15, 2026 10:57 pm EAT by Dave Johnson

What if you’ve lost your Apple hardware and it’s in a place where it can’t reach a Wi-Fi network and either has no active cellular data plan or can’t reach a cellular base station? What if it’s stolen, and the thief has disabled network access through Control Center? What if you stuck an AirTag or other Find My item on your backpack and left it where you can’t remember—or it was taken from you at an unknown time?

Apple’s solution is anonymity-preserving crowdsourcing that relies on the billion active devices their customers use worldwide, running recent-enough versions of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS to participate. The system relies on devices that can’t connect with the internet or a paired device to begin transmitting an anonymized, encrypted Bluetooth network signal that other Apple hardware can pick up.

Find My crowdsourcing causes every supporting device or item to emit a Bluetooth beacon that incorporates an encrypted hardware identifier.

This ID changes at regular intervals to prevent the privacy or safety nightmare of a third party tracking you, your devices, or your items through a persistent ID. Even Apple doesn’t really know where your devices and items are when using crowdsourcing!

When a device or item sends this beacon varies between Apple devices and Find My items:

iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch: Find My must be enabled on the device (including the Find My network option), and it must be unable to make a connection to the internet.
AirTags and other Find My items as well as Apple and Beats audio hardware: If the audio hardware is within Bluetooth range of its paired device, it acts like a device, relaying its location through it. When beyond that range, it broadcasts a Bluetooth beacon as if it were a Find My item.

While 2nd-generation AirTags have minimum operating system requirements to appear in Find My apps, there is no such issue for the Bluetooth signals they broadcast. Any device that can relay a 1st-generation AirTag’s location can relay that of a 2nd-generation AirTag. (See AirTag 2 vs AirTag.)

The original AirPods rely solely on Bluetooth-based location tracking. When within Bluetooth range, they appear in the Find My app under Devices. However, they don’t work with the crowdsourced network. You can’t mark those audio devices as lost, and you can find those devices only within range of their paired iPhone or iPad.

What Apple can and cannot see

This broadcast is recognized by anyone’s iPhone, iPad, or Mac running at least iOS 13/iPadOS 13 or macOS 10.15. If a device owned by another person has an internet connection, it encrypts a package containing the beacon’s name and location information obtained or inferred, and uploads it to Apple.

That information is stored in a very particular way:

Apple doesn’t track what IP address or device uploaded it.
Apple doesn’t know to which device or Find My item any Bluetooth ID is associated—only your hardware retains that.
Apple doesn’t have encryption keys to extract location information.

It’s a beautiful system, in that no one—not Apple, the other equipment’s owner, or anyone sniffing in the area near your device—can determine who the hardware belongs to.

In the right circumstances using an iPhone, iPad, or Mac native version of the Find My app (see Precision Finding), you trigger retrieval of this location and timestamped location:

The Find My app uploads a cryptographic secret that Apple can match against the encrypted bundles they have of Bluetooth ID and location.
Apple’s servers transmit matching entries to the requesting device.
Using a locally stored encryption key that only your devices possess, the bundles are unlocked to determine the last location found.

What you get back

Find My provides this information in two different ways depending on the hardware you’re using:

iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch plus audio hardware: The current location appears as expected in the Devices view of a native Find My app. If the device has an internet connection (direct or via a paired device for audio hardware), its location is a directly provided one; if it’s not connected to the internet, the Find My location appears when you use a Find My app.
AirTags and other items: The current or last-tracked location of a Find My network item, whether from a paired device or anyone else’s Apple device, is always shown in the Items view of the Find My or Find Items app. If you mark these devices as lost, you have more options: see what someone sees when they find your lost device.

In contrast to the Find My Device service, the Find My network is almost entirely one-way: you can determine where something is, but an owner can’t send a signal to the device unless it’s within Bluetooth range of an owner’s device. It also can’t be locked or erased as with internet-based Find My actions; See how to play a sound on a lost device or AirTag.

There are two actions you can perform as the owner of a Find My item:

When marking an item as lost, you can provide a phone number that Apple also stores securely. Someone finding the item can retrieve that data from Apple.
When you are near enough to connect to an item from one of your devices via Bluetooth, you can play a sound on it. This is particularly useful for finding a lost item in a classroom, home, or car, or for being notified of one nearby.

If someone’s iPhone or iPad detects that a Find My item or a Google Find Hub item is moving along with them—determined by Bluetooth proximity and across time—they are offered the opportunity to play a sound. That signal is sent via Bluetooth. (The same is true for an Android device detecting an Apple Find My item.) See what an “AirTag Found Moving With You” alert means.

Apple Designed the Find My Network To Deter Stalking

You might conclude that the design of the AirTag and other Find My items is both great for finding your own lost or stolen stuff—and a way someone might deploy tracking against you.

Fortunately, Apple included design elements in their Find My network for AirTags and third-party gear to try to protect the privacy of those who might be under observation without their knowledge, or who wind up accidentally transporting them. I dig into this in depth in Understand Stalking via Tracking.

Industry-Wide Anti-Stalking Standard Launched

Apple developed their system independently, though it offers a license and access to third parties. Facing criticism from a range of politicians and groups about stalking by tracker, Apple and Google—joined by several smaller firms—released a plan for interoperable industry support for identifying trackers across networks that went into effect in operating system and item updates in 2024. For more, see Active Stalking and an Industry Alliance.

You can also enable separation alerts. This feature notices when any Find My device or item is no longer in proximity to your iPhone or iPad. This might happen if you leave an iPhone in a coffee shop or it slips out of your pocket in a movie theater or you forget you put your iPad in an airplane seat’s unhygienic publication pocket. I explain separation alert management in Notifications for Devices and Items.

Google’s Find Hub offers a competing, non-interoperating ecosystem. Apple and Google don’t share location data with each other’s networks. But Android phones, iPhones, and iPads detect unwanted trackers across both ecosystems. See how to check whether someone is tracking you.

Tags: Find My, iOS, iPadOS, macOS

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