Apple’s AirTag is a cool little doohickey, useful for finding misplaced keys, wallets, even dogs. It’s very handy for your peace of mind, just to confirm that you did leave your umbrella at home, for instance. A new report claims that the AirTag 2 is on its way.
The report comes from the routinely reliable Ming-Chi Kuo from TFI Securities and in a new tweet, it’s claimed that the second-generation tracker “will likely go into mass production in 4Q24.”
That’s October 2024 onwards, which would probably mean that the AirTag update would be on sale in good time for the holidays next year. Not as soon as some might be hoping for, but if the AirTag is already doing well, maybe there’s less urgency for Apple to rush a new one into production.
And doing well, it seems, is exactly what the AirTag has been doing: Kuo has previously said that the tracking device is an unsung hero for Apple. He tweeted last month, “AirTag, which has not received much attention, has gradually grown in shipments since its release. Shipment estimations of AirTag reach about 20 mn & 35 mn units in 2021 & 2022, respectively. If AirTag shipments continue to grow, I believe Apple will develop the 2nd generation.”
That makes sense, so the question is merely when it would happen and that’s what we think we’ve had answered now.
But there’s a second part to the latest tweet, which is intriguing. Kuo goes on, “I believe that spatial computing is a new ecosystem that Apple wants to build, using Vision Pro as the core to integrate other devices, including AirTag 2.”
Kuo doesn’t reveal any more, but it sounds like Vision Pro will be a way to locate AirTags, perhaps showing their location on a 3D, wraparound map. That would be cool but potentially useful, too.
AirTags have the U1 Ultra Wideband chip in them, which helps to locate the tracker with great precision. Kuo has also said that the next series of iPhones, due to be revealed in September, will have an updated Ultra Wideband processor in them, so it seems probable that an updated AirTag could also have this successor chip inside. Precision finding is already pretty detailed, but this could increase in accuracy with a new chip, making it even better.
Could there be a new design? It’s possible, though Apple usually sticks with a design for more than one generation. The first iPhone was an exception to this, and the first iPad, both of which had very different designs in the second generation, but other products, such as AirPods, and Apple Watch looked the same as the second version was introduced. With production not expected until next year, there’s plenty of time for more information to leak.
Read the full article here
