Comply with ZDNET: Add us as a most popular supply on Google.
ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Daniel Scott used an AirTag to trace his lacking baggage at LAX.
- In doing so, Scott discovered himself and the police investigating an deserted constructing.
- There, he recovered his baggage and located a stranger carrying his garments.
Since Apple launched the AirTag in 2021, there’s been no scarcity of private testimonials that show the worth of the world’s hottest Bluetooth merchandise tracker. However maybe no case is weirder than that of Daniel Scott, a West Hollywood man who discovered himself on an intense scavenger hunt after discovering his baggage had been stolen from baggage declare final week, as reported by NBC Los Angeles.
Additionally: The very best Bluetooth trackers of 2025: Professional examined
It began with a flight from Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah, to Los Angeles, California, when Scott observed that his baggage had gone lacking. After perusing a number of carousels to no success, he checked his iPhone to pinpoint the placement of his luggage-tucked AirTag, solely to search out it shifting towards the rideshare lot and out of the airport.
“I instantly began sprinting to the Uber lot. As soon as I acquired to the Uber lot, I noticed that it was persevering with to maneuver, and it had reached throughout the road,” Scott advised NBC Los Angeles. Finally, he discovered himself in entrance of an deserted constructing close to Sepulveda Boulevard and 98th Avenue, in line with the report.
With the uptick in misplaced baggage reviews, many airports and airways can now assist AirTag location sharing for extra environment friendly recoveries.
ZDNET
Whereas Scott wasn’t shut sufficient to search out the precise flooring and room of his private belongings, Apple’s Discover My community pulled sufficient context to information LAX police to a profitable restoration and arrest, with a number of individuals within the constructing detained shortly after.
“I noticed the man with my garments on — my sneakers on, my shirt on, my pants on,” Scott described the detainment. In the meantime, Scott’s baggage was left “sliced up” along with his garments littered throughout totally different rooms of the constructing, he recounted.
The fixed evolution of AirTags
Since AirTags debuted in 2021, they’ve had sufficient real-world utilization to warrant helpful and impactful updates from Apple.
Whereas Scott’s case is an efficient illustration of the AirTag’s core performance — getting used as an merchandise tracker — prior instances have raised bigger considerations with security and privateness, together with criminals who snuck AirTags into victims’ baggage and vehicles.
To Apple’s credit score, the corporate swiftly addressed the malicious exercise by partnering with Google and others to ship push alerts when an undesirable machine is monitoring your location.
Additionally: Learn how to discover out if an AirTag is monitoring you – and what to do about it
Right this moment, the AirTag stays a extremely practical and integral piece of know-how for Apple customers. The corporate is predicted to launch its successor as quickly as subsequent week, together with the debut of the iPhone 17 collection, with its potential upgrades together with improved battery life, extra exact location monitoring, and a tamper-proof speaker design.
