Preamble

You know those parasitic fishes that stick themselves onto sharks and eat their leftovers? They are called the remora fish, and the relationship between the sharks and these fishes are called a symbiotic relationship. The parasites usually spends the most of their lives being close to or attached to the host, usually benefiting while harming the host in some way and usually having a higher reproductive potential than the host.

In the case of the remora fish, they eat the leftover food, and other parasites on the shark and keeps it clean in return. This is a win-win symbiotic relationship.

Now, in the tech world, Apple is definitely the shark, commanding a valuation of $3 Trillion for the first time in Jun 2023. So, then you ask, where are the remora fishes? There used to be none. Until Apple recently released the Find My Network API under the MFi program.

What is the MFi Program

MFi stands for “Made for iOS/iPadOS”. It is a certification from Apple that basically guarantees that the certified accessory has been acknowledged by Apple and they are 100% supported by their devices, and is safe for use. (Granted, there are certain limitations, for example iOS/iPadOS versions or product models to take note of.)

The MFi certification is only exclusive to Apple product users, and it is an assurance laid upon them that ensures the accessory consumers are buying is made of quality materials and compatible with their devices. You can be sure of the items’ quality you are getting.

As we are all aware—Apple products have long been considered a luxury and a status symbol. But besides the prestige of owning a prominent brand, their devices like the Macintosh, iPhone, iPad, and various accessories like an MFi charger and MFi lightning to 3.5mm audio adapter are reliable, and they will last for many years.

Lastly, an MFI certified accessory puts your devices at less risk of potential damage. Some counterfeit accessories may still work on your Apple products, but you have to bear in mind, for example, a non-MFi charger’s flow of electric currents is not regulated, which would potentially wear out, or even break down your device.

The certification basically tells the consumer that the accessory that they’re shopping for was approved by the Apple brand. And that they no longer have to worry about compatibility issues when pairing them to your iOS device or safety concerns. The good news, however, is that MFi certification is not limited to Apple products. As long as third-party brands have conformed to the standard of Apple, they are authorized to sell accessories for their brand.

Symbiotic Companies

Now, let’s get back to the topic at hand. There are many companies — including popular ones that you may have heard of while shopping for accessories — that operate like remora fish (or at least part of their SKUs revolve around being like one) around the shark named Apple.

Anker, Belkin, Spigen, Moshi, MOFT just to name a few.

Many of the above companies’ primary business function happens to be manufacturing an accessory that attaches itself to something Apple made, and that is a dangerous place to live. So this is a whole dynamic and it’s so fascinating to watch, because there are so many examples of it.

And of course, the Apple AirTags being one of the items that has been making me think a lot about lately. But really, anytime Apple enters a new product category, they get a lot of attention because everyone is curious about how Apple will implement the product the Apple-way. How will they separate themselves from the competitors or do anything technically different? And AirTags, they definitely have some very legitimate features, like the precision find feature, that points an arrow to where the tracker is, which is a cool demo.

Bluetooth® Trackers

However, Bluetooth® trackers are not a new space. Take for example, Tile, has been making these things since 2013, and they do fundamentally the same thing, helping you find whatever you attach it to by pinging other phones around that have it’s app installed. Creating a community mesh network, to help you find your things. There are other brands too, with, or without the mesh network that functions exactly the same.

But for the core function of finding your missing items, the AirTags have a massive advantage over all the other brands. And that is market-share. It is no longer just people using whatever brand’s app on their mobile phones. It’s now the entire Apple’s mobile product range, from iPhones, to iPads and Macbooks. And they all now passively update the position of something near it anytimes it’s around a device on that network. It’s frictionless and it happens silently and effortlessly in the background. You don’t even know it’s happening and the network is massive, Apple recently revealed that it now has 2 billion active devices all over the world in February 2023.

Comparing to Tile, after being acquired by Life360, the 47 million users of the app were added to the 50 million existing Tile users, totalling the active network to almost 100 millions active users. That’s 1/20th the number of active Apple users. See where I’m going with this?

Due to Apple’s ability to plug things into the ecosystem, especially with the iPhone, Apple can easily kill entire companies, but they dont do it manacingly, they do it nicely by presenting it as a choice on a silver platter.

In April 2021, Apple opened up the find my network to allow third-party accessories to take advantage of this incredible network. Right out of the gate, there were already e-bikes and earbuds and other Bluetooth® trackers that you can find based on nearby devices, like some Chipolo trackers.

I’ve also recently bought an off-brand Bluetooth® tracker from Anston and Friends (m2i) on TikTok and was pleasantly surprised by the quality and functionality. Granted, it’s not an AirTag replacement. However, it has most of the features of an AirTag, minus the beautiful arrow in the Find My UI that points you to the last known location of the AirTag. But it definitely functions good enough to be classed as a Bluetooth® tracker. It helps that it’s alert beeps are louder than the authentic AirTags as well, so I guess that’s it’s differentiator from AirTags, to compensate for the missing arrow.

The Choice

With that single move, Apple forced all the companies whose primary business is making trackers using mesh networks to make a choice. It’s a pretty simple choice, but it’s really a bit of a paradox. Because either way, no matter which choice you choose, Apple wins.

Let’s say Tile chooses to make a compatible tracker to use the Find My ecosystem. It seems great at first. Their users immediately can take advantage of the better network but now it means a portion of new Tile customers who were going to buy the regular tile that plugs into and improves the existing TIle network will actually be plugging into and improving Apple’s network instead. Selling a device that encourage a user to plug into another companies’ infrastructure instead of your own actively hurts your own business and will make your own network less desirable over time.

The other choice is to not participate in the Find My Network, and not offer a tile that works with it. Which just means you’re missing out on those sales. Tile’s existing network will become less appealing and slowly dies over time as people just buy the ones with the more deeply compatible iPhone.

But hey, that’s still technically a choice, Right? Look how friendly this guy is, he would never force you to do anything you didn’t want to. You can just choose to work with the iPhone or not, it’s up to you. You can choose to swim off into the rest of the ocean or you can stay swimming with me. the shark. Makes sense right?

I’d actually say the paradox of choice happens twice with AirTags. Once with Tile’s decision to become MFi certified, and another with the consumers. If you’re an iPhone user now, technically you have a choice between 2 different options. One is going to require a separate app and has a much smaller network and the other just kind of plugs right in and seamlessly work in the background. They are around the same price.

See where I’m getting at again? Apple will always repeat day-in and day-out that there are compeition, you can always choose their competitor’s product over their own. But Apple is smart too, they know they have deep market penetration with the iPhone. When they want to leverage that to jump into a new product category, they’ll do it. It’s not the first time too. With the iPad (tablet), and the Apple Watch (smart watch), they have demonstrated and made it abundantly clear that they have no problem entering a new market and then dominate that market easily by making use of their ecosystem. The AirPods are also one of the most popular earbuds among iPhone users.

Yet by doing this, they actively kill entire companies like when the shark decides to close it’s mouth and eat the fish that was cleaning it’s teeth, Apple’s done this so many times. Some of the best examples are early jailbreak-only apps for the iPhone, like f.lux, the app that lets you change color temperature of your screen by adjusting the blue light output. iPhones integrated this into the iOS and pretty much made the company obsolete. Album Cover display on the iPhones were also a jailbreak-only paid app, which Apple developed their own and released in a later iOS version.

The next examples are styluses. Before the Apple Pencil, you could get styluses of all price-points that worked with the iPads. Effectively letting you do the same thing. Later on, Apple dropped in at the high end with the Apple pencil, and then locked these third-party styluses out of some features. And guess what? Apple Pencil are now the only pencil you can use if you want the full features of a stylus with the entire iPad range. No other styluses are able to magnetically attach itself to the iPads and charge the stylus at the same time. Not to mention the automatic pairing. It just works.

I believe eventually, Apple would release a pencil with a chip that allows it to tap into the Find My Network too, and allow you to find the pencil you lost (which is not uncommon). There’s just no way to justify buying a different stylus for the iPad anymore, even though there are still abundant of choice for the consumers.

Other examples include:

• Duet Display -> Sidecar
• Watson -> Spotlight
• Flashlight app -> Built-into iPhone now

I encourage you to pay more attention to the symbiotic relationship in the tech world right now. With this much discussion on the whole Anti-Trust and Walled Garden talks. Tile actually testified in front of Congress to accuse Apple of leveraging an unfair advantage to enter the market the day after AirTags were released. And funny enough, Apple would argue that they did not dominate the market. They let people choose. They gave people a choice. Every company had a choice to plug into the Find My network. The choice was on the table.