Apple’s smart use of its product ecosystem just got smarter

The recent launch of Airtags and iOS version 14.5, which uses Apple Watch to unlock an iPhone when the user is wearing a mask, again highlights Apple’s vocation for creating product ecosystems where the differentiating feature is the interconnection between different elements of the range.

The feeling of using not one product, but an ecosystem made up of several devices that “talk” to each other is by no means new. I have it every morning when I open my computer and it unlocks without prompting me while I feel the vibration of the watch on my wrist, and the same principle is now used to unlock the phone when I have my mask on.

The ultimate application of that principle has been developed by Apple for Airtags, which leverage the network of more than a billion iPhones distributed around the world (and even Android devices) as a way to geolocate a lost object, boosting its value proposition from what was until then the leader in that segment since its launch in 2012, Tile, which relies on the network of other similar devices distributed around the world (it has sold some 35 million of them so far, plus some other devices that license and incorporate its technology). In fact, Tile has joined Sonos, PopSockets and Basecamp in complaining to Congress about the extent to which big tech companies threaten innovation by…