What you need to know
- Apple's AirTag helped the Boston Police locate a stolen bicycle.
- Gene Gorter was able to use his AirTag to guide the police to the location of the bike.
It looks like AirTags are already proving their worth when it comes to theft.
As reported by Gadget Lite, the Boston police were able to uncover a stolen bicycle with the help of Apple's new item tracker. AirTag (and bike) owner Gene Gorter posted the story to Facebook about how, after his bike got stolen on the 4th of July, the tracker went to work and saved the day.
The next morning he discovered that his Bike had been stolen, but he remembers that he had Apple AirTag hidden in the bicycle pouch.Gene then provided the AirTag tracking information to Boston police. Surprisingly, the Boston Police were able to recover the Apple AirTag from a trashcan following the AirTag tracking details just beside Gene's stolen Bicycle.As soon the Boston police recovered the Bicycle, they texted Gene with the AirTag location and the stolen Bicycle photograph.
It's still unclear why the thief was not notified of the AirTag and disposed of it elsewhere. One possibility is that they aren't wise to the existence of AirTags just yet as they are technically a newer Apple product. The other could be that they were not an iPhone-owner.
Currently, only iPhone owners will be notified on their device if a rogue AirTag is detected traveling with them. Apple has promised to release an Android app that does that same, but that isn't supposed to see a release until later this year.
Regardless of why the thief didn't realize the AirTag was there, Gene was surely happy that he stuck the tracker in his bike.
If you want to get creative with how you hide your AirTags to protect your stuff, check out our list of the Best accessories for AirTags 2021.
Bottom line: For iPhone owners, this is the best item tracker on the market right now. With simple pairing and easy-to-use software, AirTags are a kind excellent Apple product of the same vintage as Apple's AirPod family.
