On 2020-09-27 15:05, nospam wrote:
In article , Alan Browne
wrote:

Tile. (Object locating device). Huge success.

not for long and they know it.

The context was crowd funding and Tile certainly was successful in
getting funding and deploying a good, functional product and remains (I
believe) the market leader.

If Apple's widget is iOS/PadOS/WatchOS only then Tile will retain a huge
market opportunity base.

not really, since tile requires a critical mass of tile users who have
installed the tile app *and* are actively running in the background,
which is something that will simply not happen in the numbers for it to
be reliable.

Tile have accused Apple of dissuading users from using Tile in background:
https://9to5mac.com/2020/04/02/apple-breaking-promises/

their claims are baseless and a clear sign of desperation.

Not baseless at all. They have clear proof that Apple's position of
dominance and control over the app sphere has diminished the value of
their product.


apple's changes to ios 13 are for overall security, not specifically
targeting tile.

it does affect tile, but it also affects a slew of other apps that want
to get location in the background, usually for nefarious purposes.

Apple merely need to grant Tile's apps "non nefarious" status. Tile
have a developer account with Apple and that would be very easy to
implement. Unless ...


there is also no requirement that any store sell a particular product.

Apple's platforms are seen more and more as a "common carrier" sort of
resource (as mentioned prior post) and so their effect on the app
ecosphere is seen as over controlling.

I don't really give a crap about Fortnite's complaint: they knew what
they were getting into and used the base at any cost to develop their
subscriber base. Can't have it both ways.


for apple's system, just one person with an ios device needs to be
nearby at some point, and with well over a billion ios users, that's a
virtual certainty.

apple's system will also do more than just tell you the general
vicinity, but *exactly* where the item is with roughly 1 cm accuracy.

I doubt the 1 cm but within 1m or so is fine by me.

https://sixcolors.com/post/2019/09/t...one-11-is-the-
beginning-of-an-ultra-wideband-revolution/
...From raw data alone, UWB devices can detect locations within
10 centimeters (4 inches), but depending on implementation that
accuracy can be lowered to as much as 5 millimeters, according to
Mickael Viot, VP of marketing at UWB chipmaker Decawave.

Position is trilateration based so from a single position that would be
utterly impossible. Range, yes, position, forget it.
Moving at a significant angle (say 30°) to the line of bearing would
begin to get a relative position that converges toward a point. The
greater the angle up to 90° the faster the estimate converges.
Multipath might muck that up at longer distances ... though UWB may
afford a lot of mitigation there.

The flies in the ointment are

1) for short range baselines (10's of metres or so), the iPhone would be
using its accelerometers and gyros to estimate the path of the "base" of
the locating triangle. While the gyros are remarkably good, the
accelerometers drift quite rapidly (mainly because they are very tiny), and

2) that if, say "co-operating" detector B wanders by A's lost object and
detects its relative position (to B) within any accuracy (say 10 cm),
when it transmits this info to the owner (via Apple's services), it will
be based on the GNSS location of B at the time of detection and best
estimate of position.
That GNSS location is of course off by metres to even 10's of metres
depending on various local conditions not to mention how good the local
relative position was.
Still, that gets pretty close to A's lost widget, and that is the point.
Never take claims of accuracy in these things too literally w/o
analyzing the entire error chain and conditions.

IAC, you can bet I'll be testing these claims out when the widgets are
available. That includes in the local dense forest and in urban
jungles. My iPhone 11 Pro should support it.


tile is history. they know it. the market knows it. that's why they've
resorted to lawsuits. it's all they have left.

We'll see. I 'spect just due to the larger mass of Android phones that
Tile will continue to do well.

that remains to be seen.

If Android users can't use the Apple widget, then that's where they will
turn to. Just reality. I know and you probably know people who want
absolutely nothing to do with Apple for whatever reason.


there will be a much smaller install base to find a tile, making it
less effective than it already is, which isn't particularly good.

I'd surmise that the vast majority of "find it" cases are localized on
"not co-operative" mode. ie: where the heck are my keys? Where is my
phone?


What lawsuits? They have testified to Congress and to EU antitrust
regulators but I can't find any mention of a lawsuit.

Lawsuits aren't always desperation - they can be legitimate pursuits of
protecting one's IP or access to market. Apple do it too...

At some point, iOS becomes likened to a "common carrier" of sorts (in
this case as an appliance and OS) and has to be reasonably open in all
ways to all comers. I think that is what Tile are pressing upon the US
Congress and EU regulators.

tile has a substantially inferior product and instead of improving it,
they turn to the courts. that is not a good strategy.

It doesn't matter if their product is inferior, Apple should not be
interfering with their access to those functions that make it as good as
it can be.

As value propositions go, this is free market and would allow Apple to
charge more for their widget or force Tile to charge less for theirs.

--
"...there are many humorous things in this world; among them the white
man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages."
-Samuel Clemens