One that really annoys me is inability to monitor/control my kid's device useage and time limits.

That's a parenting issue. Your kid should have the self control to understand and set limits. In my house, my kids set kitchen timers.

Unless you are arguing that the feature should be removed from iOS and macOS devices, it is entirely a technical issue. Me preferring to use an Android device rather than an iPhone is not a parenting issue.

Possible in the apple ecosystem. If the kids are part of a "familly", you can monitor / control using Parental Controls accessed from your iPhone > Settings > Screen Time.

Also checkout firewalla https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/articles/360008214094-Ac...

It sounds like the gp’s objection might be that they’d like for their children to use iPhone and its parental controls, but they themselves would prefer to use other platforms to manage the supervision features. As far as I know, you do in fact have to be within the apple ecosystem to manage the ScreenTime features as you suggest.

Firewalla looks really thoughtfully designed! I’m glad to be aware of it.

I actually have Firewalla (it's great!). But it's only helpful when a kid's phone is connected to the network itself (which they can escape easily by disconnecting from wifi). The native stuff works on all networks.

I’ve been assessing this. Is it possible to MDM-install a VPN to the home network so the same policies are enforced?

I’ve always thought their implementation of this is pretty poor. Lots of granular options but it’s difficult to cover all bases.

Does Blue Bubbles work for this? They have find my built into their app

Kind of? Right now it feels like it's glued on the side and a good proof of concept. It takes a lot more panning and zooming than it should. But it DOES work, one-way: you can see your friends' locations but they can't see yours.

What information is available through this api that would not already be available over the web?

Hopefully locations shared by users not part of my iCloud Family account, and "Items" (Apple jargon term for AirTags). Currently it only shows macOS or iOS "Devices" directly linked to my iCloud account, or in my iCloud Family, none of the locations shared by friends. And it shows no "Items," not even those in my iCloud account.

(... yep, it looks like one of their example programs is about accessing AirTag info via API: https://github.com/malmeloo/FindMy.py/blob/main/examples/rea... ...)

“Items” is not an Apple jargon term for AirTags. AirTags are not the only thing that can show up in this list. Third-party FindMy-compatible devices are quite common.

Since you frankly seem to have a bee in your bonnet about Apple, I’d suggest that you actually look into these. They might be more to your taste.

To the best of my knowledge, AirTag locations still cannot be obtained through the iCloud website. The locations it shows are simply generated by the devices themselves and uploaded directly to Apple. This library specifically only queries the FindMy network, which is the system that allows other iPhones (and iPads etc.) to "find" your devices.

The library also explicitly does not integrate with your Apple account, but only uses it to query encrypted location reports from Apple. This can be done with any account, even if it does not "own" the device, as long as you can generate the correct keys.

Even within Apple's platforms, there's pretty limited support for automation -- you can say "Siri find my keys" but there's no App Intents / Shortcuts support for automating anything within Find My (AFAIK), which is a bit disappointing.

What about Apple Auotomator and Applescript?

Find My has no any exposed Applescript commands. You'd next need to try (I think, been >a decade) Accessibility Inspector to find the names of the interface so you can tell Applescript what to click on. On some apps, even this doesn't work.

I also suspect Find My is a Catalyst-ported iPadOS app, which tend to be awful/useless for scripting.

> You'd next need to try (I think, been >a decade) Accessibility Inspector to find the names of the interface so you can tell Applescript what to click on. On some apps, even this doesn't work.

I am cursed with a lot of experience doing just this. However, I will say that every year it's getting harder and harder to do. The new security/accessibility changes in Sequoia have made things even more of a nightmare.

Yes, although I recently discovered Hammerspoon which is a clever little bit of open source macOS desktop automation technology:

https://www.hammerspoon.org/

I suspect they might be a bit wary of the privacy implications of giving other apps/Shortcuts access to Findmy data

What does "x-platform" mean in this context?

Cross-platform. There are 3 major desktop operating systems (Windows, Linux, and Mac) and 2 major mobile operating systems (iPhone and Android). Every single OS has a huge marketshare worldwide (including Linux, if you count servers).

A truly x-platform app is one that works well on all 5 of these platforms, e.g. Signal. A moderately x-platform app is one that works well on the two mobile operating systems and on web as an alternative to desktop, e.g. WhatsApp. A single-platform app, like Apple FindMy, only works properly on e.g. Mac + iPhone. Apple tends to be the only major industry player that produces these sorts of apps, e.g. iMessage, FaceTime, Final Cut Pro, Keynote. Although with Keynote you can often get by with the iCloud web version, which has a useful 80%-or-so of the desktop app's features. Even apps like Meet, Zoom, and Teams -- run by rival companies -- are more x-platform than major Apple apps.

I think the GP knows what cross-platform means, but is confused by using "X" as shorthand for "cross". In my opinion, it's not widespread enough for the four-letter saving to be worth the confusion.

Probably a good point, well taken. Especially now that "X" is the name of a social media platform :-)

Long before the richest man on earth bought Twitter to be his personal megaphone to help him prepare to become president in order to boost all his personal endeavors, the letter X has been used as a sort of contraction to replace common morphemes like "cross", "trans" etc, in places where the physical representation "x" likens to a cross or crossing of some sort, or in reference to the Greek letter Chi. Must we change our use of language to support this guy, too?

Xtian Xmas xfer tx/rx xor...

You pretty much listed all the examples where that’s done (x-ing is also a big one, on signs), but there are way more cases where no one would ever use the letter X like that. I think parsing that kind of “syntax sugar” takes more cycles than a lot of people care to spare just to understand what a stranger is saying online. It’s too loose to be commonly applicable. Things like “Xmas” are accepted on a case by case basis.

The argument wasn’t made out of principle, either. If it were more widespread, it would be worth the potential confusion. It’s just not. I agree with that.

I don't think "xor" belongs to that list, given that the "x" in it is a shortening of "eXclusive".

You need to be a natural-born citizen to become US president. Musk was born in South Africa.

I didn't directly interpret it a cross-platform but more as (x) platform... Asin variable x which is not Apple... Which is semantically the same I guess but not entirely.

Just to add to the different ways that that exact grouping of letters can be interpreted.

Maybe because I see an API as being able to be accessed from anywhere, so you could query it from a home automation device to trigger something when you are withing X meters of your house, which even if Apple truly released a cross-platform version of Find My that wouldn't be possible.

Linux is not a “major desktop operating system”. Let’s be intellectually honest here, particularly because you’re using the number “3” to bolster your argument that Apple is being negligent or unfair or whatever. Be annoyed at Apple for not ‘supporting Android’ or whatever all you want, but let’s not pretend that Apple isn’t paying a very justifiable amount of attention to desktop Linux. What next, iCloud.com doesn’t load properly in Lynx?

Estimates from earlier this year are over 60 Million Linux powered desktop PCs globally.

That's not a huge portion of total market share but is still major by some measure.

Exactly. And I also like to remind the Apple fans that Linux's desktop OS market share today is around the same share macOS X had in the period 2002-2010, when Windows was completely dominant and before the iPhone turned so many into macS desktop users. I also like to remind them that the perspective that iOS and Android are both dominant mobile platforms is very US- and Canada-centric. In the rest of the world outside of the very richest nations, Android is dominant. And in many poor areas the world over, Linux desktop is used if for no other reason than to rejuvenate used hardware and avoid software licensing fees. So Apple knows exactly what it is doing when it avoids cross-platform development.

Cross platform (something that works well outside of Apple apps/devices)

Cross platform -> † platform -> t platform might be a better choice

I ended up using Shortcuts to publish a set of screenshots from an always-on Mac every 10 minutes or so for a set of shared, family AirTags: http://vitor.io/android-airtags

I couldn't reliably get iOS to do the same, and my tests of an Android-compatible tag found it was detected much less often than an AirTag riding along with it.

Wow, that's some dedication to solve this problem! Very nice write-up. It was also good to see your thinking behind why doing this on an always-on Mac was better than possible alternatives. Thankfully M-series Macs don't draw much power at all at idle.