Apple refreshed its ‘Find My’ app with the announcement of macOS Catalina and iOS 13 back in June earlier this year. The company expanded focus on security, providing users the easiest way to track their lost MacBook or iPhones — even when they are turned off. Well, Apple is said to be working on a Tile-like tracking accessory that will expand on its ‘Find My’ rationale and offer users a way to track their personal belongings.
Rumors of Apple working on a tracking accessory are making rounds of the Internet for quite some time now. The hints for something similar being in the works was spotted in April earlier this year, but proof has since been found in internal iOS 13 builds.
The tracker is codenamed B389, as reported first by MacRumors who spotted strings of text in iOS 13 code hinting towards the nature of this accessory. B389 is expected to be used as a tag for other items as its purpose is defined as “tag your everyday items with B389 and never lose them again.”
These tags will be synced with the refreshed Find My app, which will see the addition of another category called Items. A new tab for the same has been spotted in an internal build of iOS 13, which mean you will soon be able to keep track of and locate personal belongings using this new accessory and the Find My app.
Other strings in the code are hinting at a notification system that will intimate you when you’ve traveled away from a tagged item — not applicable of items marked with a “Safe Locations” tag. You can choose for the tag to start emitting an audio chime so you could locate the lost item, which is an upgrade over Tile’s simplistic yet useful functionality.
What’s impressive is the fact that if you mark an item as lost and say another Apple user comes across it, then they can view contact information of the owner. They can message and call them to inform that their goods have been found by someone. There’s no info on how this feature will work, however, it sounds quite useful and cool.
