In the latest Power On Newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple will be upgrading the AirTag in the middle of 2025. The upgrade would be the first since the tracking device was released in April 2021.
As for what the upgrade will include, Gurman states it will have “a better chip with improved location tracking.” The current AirTag has Apple’s U1 chip, which uses ultra-wideband (UWB) technology to give a device with the chip spatial awareness. With the iPhone 15 Pro, Apple released a second-generation UWB chip with better precision. So, it appears that Apple will update the AirTag with the new chip.
Gurman doesn’t mention any other features, but he does say his personal wish list includes a louder speaker, better battery life, and a size that fits well in a wallet. Whether his wish list is his way of implying that these are possible features is not clear.
Gurman also states that Apple is already doing test production runs of the new AirTag. A new AirTag seems like a good product to make available during the holiday shopping season, so if Apple is already doing a test run, perhaps the release schedule could move up to the latter part of this year. However, the original AirTag was released in April so a similar timeframe seems equally possible.
Gurman’s report comes about eight months after a report by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo who said that production of the new AirTag has been pushed from August 2024 to some time in 2025. Kuo did not provide a reason for the rescheduling.
The AirTag is a disk-shaped Bluetooth device that is used as a tracker. It works with the Find My app that can be used to determine the approximate location of the items attached to the AirTag. To learn more, read our AirTag review and check out our AirTag superguide.
Author: Roman Loyola, Senior Editor, Macworld
Roman is a Macworld Senior Editor with over 30 years of experience covering the tech industry, focusing on the Mac and other products in the Apple ecosystem. He is also the host of the Macworld Podcast. His career started at MacUser, where he received Apple certification as a repair technician (when Apple did that kind of thing). He's also worked for MacAddict, MacLife, and TechTV.