AirTag 2 is a missed opportunity for a reboot

The new AirTag, announced yesterday, does the same things as the first one, but it does them a little better. It has a longer Precision Finding range and a louder speaker. This sounds good, and certainly isn’t unwelcome. The problem is what hasn’t changed.

We gave the 2021 AirTag a solid review because it did its job well. The design was slimline and unobtrusive, tracking was effective and easy to use, and the price was right. It was an excellent Bluetooth tracker embodying many of Apple’s best qualities.

But there were problems too. For one, that attractive design was available in just one wallet-unfriendly size and was too elegantly minimalist to include anything as plebeian as a hole, which meant the AirTag nearly always had to be used in conjunction with an accessory such as a keyring or luggage tag. For another, there emerged serious concerns about privacy, after unscrupulous parties started using the device to stalk their victims: slipped in a pocket or tucked into a car’s wheel well, it might not be discovered until too late.

Apple, to its credit, took the stalking issue seriously and quickly addressed it with firmware updates. Nowadays, AirTags beep once separated from their owner for a matter of hours rather than days, and will send smartphone alerts to any unfamiliar devices that are traveling with it. This was a necessary and admirable step. But the side effect is that AirTags aren’t as useful as anti-theft devices, because tracking a stolen device is functionally the same as stalking the thief. You can beat theft or stalking, but not both.

Despite these two quibbles the original AirTag was widely praised and appears to have been a minor success. So it would not have been a surprise if Apple launched a follow-up one or two years later with only minimal changes: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

But Apple didn’t do that, and it gradually became clear that the second model wouldn’t arrive for a while. (Back in 2023, I wrote an article warning that the AirTag 2 had been postponed to 2025. Turns out even that was optimistic.) When the second version of a product arrives the better part of five years after the first one, consumers are liable to expect something more substantive. Or maybe that’s just journalists.

Regardless, a lot of time has passed. Indeed, in the absence of new hardware, Apple has been busily working on the software side to upgrade the AirTag experience. In an even older article, I discussed seven ways the product could be improved in the second generation, and it’s gratifying to note how many were quietly sorted before the AirTag 2 arrived. Separation alerts: Check. Sharing: Check. Improved privacy measures: Check.

Against that backdrop, I was keyed up for the actual AirTag 2 to complete the set with hardware upgrades. On the plus side, we get a longer effective location range, which ticks another of my requests. And there might be a child safety mechanism on the battery compartment, which probably wouldn’t get a mention in a press release for obvious reasons. But we’re definitely missing the multiple size/style options and the all-important keyring hole, which you’ll notice were the top two entries on my list.

Which is rather disappointing. This was an opportunity to rethink the product from the ground up, to actively engage with the problems that firmware cannot fix. And instead of asking the hard questions, the company chose to tinker very slightly with the elements that already work. It puts me in mind of the HomePod 2, whose designers apparently spent five years rebalancing the bass and completely failed to address the original model’s serious issues with voice control and Wi-Fi connectivity.

This is not to say that the AirTag 2 is a bad product; I look forward to trying it out and have high hopes for a slick, competent user experience… just like the AirTag 1. I just think that after all these years, and all those firmware updates, Apple could have been a little more ambitious on the hardware side than a new chip and a louder speaker.

For alternetives, check out our reviews of the best Apple Find My trackers that beat the AirTag.