"Surveillance-minded" (hereafter, "Helicopter") parents were almost certainly already doing that.

It just required a sharp knife and a tube of contact adhesive previously.

This reminds me of an episode of Black Mirror that I can't remember the name of.

Just give them a phone. Then at least they get something they want with it, instead of ugly shoes.

A lot of people don't know this, but you can put your weed in there.

If you need to spy on your kids to keep tabs on them, you're a shitty parent. You should be able to discuss enabling Find My (assuming they have an iPhone) on their phone and why that's required (by you) openly.

Too many inept people have children. That's a large part of why society is in such decline.

I swear these are apple guerrilla marketing articles. Air tags in the shoe is so stupidly expensive for the task.

"Can"? Were they physically unable to before?

The peak of evolved kids shoes are those with wheels on the heels ("Heelys")

Parents worry about their kids. All mammals I've ever heard of do this. So when you tell human parents that they can have a better chance of finding their kids if their kids are missing, injured, or abducted, that's going to appeal.

I don't believe it's about sUrVeIlLaNcE at all.

I'm not concerned with tracking where my kids are with these, but tracking their shoes sounds kinda useful. Average daily conversation in my house:

"Where are you shoes?"
"I don't know?"
"You were just in the middle of putting them on!?!!"
"Yeah but... I can't find them now."
"How? You had them in your hands?!?"
"That was, um, before I got distracted."
"*sigh* Let's go try and find them."

Kids have a distinct advantage in this ongoing consumer tech war between parents and kids.

I don't use TikTok, but I'd be pretty surprised if this wasn't already starting to trend there, along with ideas for where to put the airtags to fool parents.

Maybe just... talk to your kids?

showing my age but when I was a kid during the summer or on weekends I'd be out of the house all day and just where ever in my town. My parents didn't care as long as I was either home for dinner or by the time the street lights came on. and if I wasn't home for dinner I had to find a phone and call not because my parents would be worried but so they either wouldn't have to cook as much or set out a plate for me.

That's kind of dumb.

Is there an open sources solution for GPS tracking devices that size? Because I feel like we need something to counteract people willing to trust Apple to track people and things everywhere.

be kid

find this in your shoe

get idea

catch seagull

tie airtag to its foot.

go see mom having a fit