ANDROID smartphone owners have been urged to install an app by rival Apple after a string of stalking incidents.
The tech giant has made the rare decision to release an app on its main competitor’s platform to let them detect AirTags.
The device is meant to help people find stuff like their keys if they’re lost.
But there have been an increasing number of reports of stalkers exploiting the tech for the wrong reasons.
Last week, police in the US revealed that one victim found an AirTag attached to their car.
The person said they received a message on their Apple device saying: “Unknown Accessory Detected – This Item Has Been Moving With You For A While”.
While alerts like this are baked into Apple’s iOS automatically, Android users remain in danger.
Which is why Apple made the decision to release a Tracker Detect app for anyone who doesn’t have an iPhone.
“Tracker Detect looks for item trackers that are separated from their owner and that are compatible with Apple’s Find My network,” Apple says.
“These item trackers include AirTag and compatible devices from other companies.
“If you think someone is using AirTag or another device to track your location, you can scan to try to find it.”
There have been countless other examples of people being followed with AirTags, including swimwear model Brooks Nader who revealed how a stalker planted one on her and followed her home.
If an AirTag is traveling with an unregistered person, it will chirp sometime after 8 to 24 hours.
It will also send a notification to the nearest iPhone, provided it’s running on iOS 14.5 or later.
iPhone users who find an unknown AirTag in their belongings can tap their phone against it to get the serial number and information on how to disable it.
Extending something similar to Android users was first discussed by the company in June amid an outcry of concern about safety.
The app doesn’t just detect Apple’s AirTags either, they can also find other compatible tracking devices.
In other news, personalised smart guns, which can be fired only by verified users, may finally become available to U.S. consumers this year.
Tech giant Microsoft is trying to make the world more woke by rolling out an “inclusiveness” checker in its Word software.
And a federal anti-trust case against Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, has been given the go-ahead.
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