Last summer I was moving plants around in the greenhouse and a branch on one of the tomato plants caught and pulled the AirPod out of my left ear and flung it out of sight. After searching for five minutes, I couldn’t find it anywhere and began to panic. Somehow I thought of Find My app on my phone; both AirPods appeared there immediately but the location tracking wasn’t precise enough to pinpoint the missing unit. I noticed a button on the app which said Play Sound, and I was able to toggle that to have the missing pod play an audible tone. This led me to find it behind a stack of pots in a far corner, someplace I never would have looked otherwise. That alone would have made the purchase price worth the money—beside the fact that they are awesome.

Apple announced today they’re opening up the excellent Find My service to third-party manufacturers. This could conceivably mean I could put a Find My tag in all three of my cars, on my bicycles (ahem Finley’s bicycle), and on my car keys, and use their system to keep track of them all. What I don’t know yet is how it would connect to dumb unwired devices—would I have to charge a battery on the tag on my bike, for example—or would it be a dumb chip like Tile? Either way, I’ll be keeping a close eye on this, and when the car versions come out, hardwiring one into each of our vehicles.