Guy sends AirTag to Tim Cook, gets it back with a letter

What would happen if you sent a couple of AirTags halfway around the world? Would they continue sending you their location, how well, and for how long?

YouTuber MegaLag (via 9to5Mac) set out to do just that in June, when he sent three AirTags away from Germany: One to the German embassy in North Korea, one to Elon Musk at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, and one to Tim Cook at Apple Park in San Francisco, California.

What he got out of it was quite an interesting story, documented in two videos (below). The AirTag sent to North Korea never reached its destination, and the one sent to Musk just sort of sat there at SpaceX until it was trashed. But the one sent to Apple was returned to MegaLag with a letter from one of Tim Cook's assistant.

"Thank you for sharing about your project for Apple AirTags. We’re delighted to hear about creative uses for the AirTags and how they can improve our customers’ lives. As you can imagine, Mr. Cook receives hundreds of letters each month from customers like yourself. Unfortunately, he is unable to respond to every request. But we hope you continue to enjoy your AirTag as it returns from its unique journey across the world," the letter said.

While the letter from Apple is cool, this is one of those cases where the journey is really more interesting than the destination. For example, at one point, the AirTag sent to Cook was identified in Nevada, apparently after having connected to someone's iPhone on a plane.

Generally, Apple's Find My app did a decent job of locating the AirTags as they traveled across the globe (definitely better than the shipping companies actually shipping the parcels). Which is somehow both comforting and scary at the same time.