Maybe the author is talking about devices that are asleep/off? They mention "weeks" at one point, making me think that the AirTags wake the devices from sleep often, which you'll notice in an iPad that dies after one week instead of a month while sleeping, but not in a phone that you charge every day.

I've actually had exactly this problem with a really old iPad recently. It would last 2-3 months if I never touched it, now it's always dead when I go to reach for it, which is maybe every 2 weeks-ish.

Just assumed the battery hit some sort of cliff but now this article has me wondering if my neighbors got an airtag.

Airtags are based off of Apple's existing BLE Find My network, so it might not necessarily have to be an airtag. Off the top of my head, I know that airpods had a similar functionality enabled a while back.

My iPhone barely registers any battery usage by Find My but it hammers my iPad drawing the battery anywhere from 20 to 50% overnight. It’s a very real and very annoying problem.

And we still wonder why misinformation moves so much faster than truth. It has to be some kind of emotional thing. How many people just saw the headline, immediately decided it must be true, and will now be sure to mention it any time someone mentions AirTags in the future.

I doubt this is exactly a new phenomenon, but it sure seems surprising the human race has made it as far as we have successfully.

To be fair, you've fallen into the same trap. One person says they don't have a problem, you believe them and start saying the first statement must be misinformation.

It's possible that both people are correct and the circumstances that cause the battery to drain require being connected to a AirTag, not just near any old AirTag. Or there are other circumstances that cause the battery to drain.

I don't think I have. I also have an iPad, and I have AirTags, and it does not have a battery drain problem, which is one additional data point for me. Plus, this is the default, expected behavior, and the post that started this discussion is disputing that. Without adequate evidence to back it up. The onus is on them to put forth convincing evidence, or it is nothing but another conspiracy theory. Presuming the status quo is not falling into any trap, it's what everyone should do when presented with a claim that deviates.

My experience dealing with customer support is that there is almost always an actual problem when a customer complains.

They often don't know the right words to use, and have no idea why an issue is happening, or they might come up with a completely wrong explanation. So it's easy to dismiss their concerns by saying things like "this doesn't make sense" or "it works on my machine".

It's only when you start digging deeper, investigating what exactly the customer could mean, that you eventually discover the root of the issue.

Of course, these investigations are time consuming an expensive, often the customer stops following up with you, or you might not understand the behaviour well enough on your own. So very often you don't find the underlying cause.

But calling someone a liar just because you can't reproduce their problem is short-sighted and stupid.

You have better chances of resolving issues within a company, but the mechanics are exactly as you describe.

Being someone who likes to solve these problems, I'm aware that cost sometimes require you to walk away from solving a problem.

Anecdatum: There's two iPhones and an iPad in this flat along with 3 AirTags - there's been no change in battery life since the AirTags arrived a few months ago.

Maybe it's only when you're in local contact with not-your AirTags?

I've had some broadcast-happy wifi light bulbs drain iOS devices because they are on the same SSID and vlan. I'm pretty sure running Home Assistant with some random open source plugin the actual issue. Turning off the light bulbs fixed the battery drain. Eventually I just moved the iOS devices to another SSID and vlan, which was a better fix.