Apple's 'Find My' App
 

A question to the (Apple) panel. Whilst using the Find My App recently to see where an iTag is, the phone Find My seems stuck on the last position it was 'seen', yet if I check on other devices an up to date status is shown. I would have thought that the same time status (live or last) would be shown on ALL devices simultaneously. Any ideas ? All software updates are.....up to date :-)

Pprune must be an Android world ;-) Whilst observing the situation more than necessary, it seems that the iPhone doesn't update as often as other (larger) devices for some unknown reason, sometimes being an hour or two behind the latest positional update.

Maybe the battery in the iTag has gone flat. One setting is "Automatically send the location of this device to Apple when the battery is critically low"; FindMy would then show the last position, date and time with no further updates.

Good idea, but by chance the battery was replaced last week and is showing as healthy as a butcher's dog.

One reason people choose Apple over Android is so they don't need to worry about how it works.

I'm a committed Android user, but having been forced to use Apple on company devices I'm getting much closer to making the switch.

All I can say is that Apple Phones and Apple iPads do not work the same as each other, and suggest that maybe different security, power saving or network settings on your devices affect how regularly the 'Find My' app updates itself?

Perhaps the tag was in a position where it didn't have a good connection to the network? I'm not seeing the same behaviour on my phone when I compare it to my Macbook, but I don't use AirTags. Sometimes the position of a phone can't be updated right away, usually it's either because the battery is dead or reception is bad in the location where the phone is. I also suspect that a phone that is being used (for an actual phone call) does not update its position as regularly as during other times, but I'm not sure about that.

Don't the iTags rely on an iPhone or iPad being nearby and it then uses that device to update the location; it can be any anybody's device rather than just your own device. If the iTag has been dropped in a remote location then it is possible that no devices have been close enough for it to update its location since it was left there.

Currently Macbook says "last seen 3mins ago, iPhone says 'last seen at 09.16am'.....Same iTag and same system access (Find My).

I'm assuming both the Macbook and the iPhone are out of range of the Tag, whose position is being detected by a third device, and that as far as you know the reported location is correct?

As I said, iPhones behave differently from computers and iPads, and may be running different software. Perhaps the iPhone is reporting the first time the tag communicated with the remote device, while the Macbook is reporting the most recent time. Both times are of interest I guess.