Sources: Apple is working on a combined Find My Friends and Find My iPhone app, for iOS and macOS, and a Tile-like tracking device
Apple is working on a new app that's going to replace the Find My Friends and Find My iPhone apps. With codename “GreenTorch”, the app is currently being tested by engineers at the company.
Context & Ripple Effects
This April 2019 report was the first look at what became one of Apple's quietest infrastructure builds: a single app, codenamed GreenTorch, folding Find My Friends and Find My iPhone together, paired with a Tile-like hardware tracker in development. Two months later the combined app shipped as Find My on macOS and iOS, including offline device finding that Apple detailed as end-to-end cryptography even Apple itself cannot bypass (Wired's cryptography explorer).
The tracker half of the report took longer to surface: iOS 13 internal-build code later revealed how the accessory works — location-based alerts and AR-guided item finding — before Apple opened the Find My network to third-party devices via an enterprise testing app ahead of AirTags.
First-order effects
- Users get one app instead of two for locating people and devices across iOS and macOS, with offline finding extending search beyond devices that are powered on and connected.
- Apple positions its own hardware tracker against Tile, whose standalone Bluetooth business now competes with an accessory backed by Apple's installed base.
Second-order effects
- Third-party accessory makers gain a distribution decision: joining Apple's Find My network means reaching hundreds of millions of iPhones without building their own finding apps or networks.
- Tile's response pressure shifts from hardware features to ecosystem reach, since Apple's tracker rides pre-existing OS integration rather than a separate app install.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, location tracking consolidates around platform-owner networks with privacy guarantees baked into the protocol — a structure that later forced cross-platform mitigations like Apple's Tracker Detect Android app to scan for unknown AirTags traveling with users.
The trend: Item tracking is shifting from standalone vendors' proprietary networks to platform owners' OS-level networks, where scale and cryptographic privacy design set the terms.