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The loophole seems to be having an app pinned to the screen (I’ve never done this, but it presumably keeps the phone from locking) while requiring you to have an unlocked phone to use NFC payments. This doesn’t seem to be a common scenario (I can imagine doing this in some sort of kiosk mode, or giving the phone to a kid and locking the app so he can’t wander around).

“OK, how can we make a web interface more difficult to use?”

One other thought is to use Google Voice.

At least in that case, everything runs through a Google server, rather than through some possibly janky connection between your desktop and phone.

The drawback is that, if you have an existing phone number, you’d have to port it over to Google Voice (or maybe Google Fi can port that number to an actual cell phone; not sure if it can).

The drawback of non-AirTags is that they depend on people consciously opting in to the network (by, say, buying Tiles themselves and running the app). The AirTag network just exists because every iPhone is part of the network, whether or not people have bought AirTags themselves. The AirTag network is orders of magnitude larger and denser than, say, the Tile network.

This vast difference between coverage networks will also push Tiles to extinction, as the Tile network is now far, far worse than the AirTag one, and there’s not much point in buying one. If you’re serious about tracking your stuff, it’s quite possibly worth buying a used iPad just for this purpose.