AirTag, having no hole, accessories and Tile acquisition!
Well, I chukled while writing that title. :)
On May 3, 2021, in an interview with Emily Chang, Tile CEO CJ Prober told that AirTag put their trackers at a disadvantage and he called Apple a “runaway monopoly train”. Today, Nov 22, 2021, family locator service company Life360 is acquiring Tile for $205 million.
I loved using Tile Pro tracker. But, I always disliked giving the Tile app continuous location tracking. I was kind of happy when a rumor surfaced that Apple was working on a Tile like tracker. My immediate thought was I could knock down one more app that tracks my location always. Also, I was okay to give necessary Apple services that tracks location - Find My etc.
And, when AirTag was released, my immediate reaction was - “Come on Apple. Accessries for this? Just put that minute hole on it.”
Also, not having a hole on AirTag was a decision that was taken by multiple people in multiple teams at multiple levels, just to sell more accessories. Just a god damn small hole. Just see below what Tile did. :)
If #Tile had removed that hole and sell accessories it would not be in a position to get sold to #Life360.
— Chandra Polepeddi (@arcrandom) November 23, 2021
Learn from #Apple and sell accessories. /s pic.twitter.com/Ya3wcNTxXs