Apple versus Android, it's a battle that could go on until the end of time, but today we are going to see which one wins.

For device tracking, hi I'm Lexi, welcome to your weekly dose of all things mobile. Make sure to subscribe for more, so let's go!

Welcome to P39 in San Francisco, the most popular tourist attraction in the city. So if I can't find my lost stuff here, I'm probably not going to be able to find it anywhere.

On team Android, we have the Chipolo One, which is one of the first trackers to use Android's new Find My Device network, and on team Apple, it's the AirTag—tried and true.

All right, so what's going to happen? My producer John is going to put them both on a keychain, drop them off somewhere in here, and casually lose them.

Then I am going to use my phones to see which one I can find first and most easily. So let's go lose some stuff!

All right, John, here we go! Enjoy, I'll be back. I'm excited to see what happens. Bye, John.

Don't lose my stuff too much, please. So the goal here is to go as far as I can that is outside of the Bluetooth range.

Obviously, it's really small, so she's going to have a hard time even locating it with the naked eye. I mean, that's what tech is for now, right?

So here we go, I'm going to hide this somewhere back here so that it's not visible. It's going to be right under the SF Gold.

All right, it's in there now. It's in the gold. All right, I have no idea where they are. We're going to sit and load up the apps on each of the devices.

Mark both of them as lost, and then I'm going to start a stopwatch to see which one actually is found first.

So let's do it. All right, Find My and Find Device. Now I'm going to mark each of them as lost.

Let's go in here and I'm going to mark as lost on both and enable them. So both devices are marked as lost.

They kind of look similar. You'll get a notification when both of them are found using the network, and you'll also be able to have your contact information connected to that tracker.

So if someone does find it, hopefully, it'll make its way back to you. All right, a few minutes later, we have our first notification: the AirTag was found in 4 minutes and 45 seconds.

This AirTag was seen nearby. All right, while we wait to see how long it takes the Android to find the device in the sea of other Android phones that are out here, let's talk a little bit about how these networks work.

Both Android and Apple use a crowdsourced platform from other people's phones essentially to help locate your lost items.

Both of them can do the same three things: they can both mark your items as lost, they can both play a sound to see if your item is nearby, and you can also share items with friends or family members with either Apple IDs or Google accounts.

Both of them are also really easy to set up. You just bring an AirTag near your iPhone to set it up, and on the Android side with the Chipolo tag at least, you just need to press it once, and then you'll find the Fast Pair notification pops up on your Android device.

Super easy! There are a few key differences, though, at the At the tip of recording this video, Android's Find My Device network and the trackers only use Bluetooth, while Apple's AirTags use both Bluetooth and Ultra Wideband.

Ultra Wideband is the technology that helps pinpoint a more exact location and helps you bring up that indication on the screen.

This gives you the distance when you're getting closer to the device. Number two, AirTags have separation alerts, and again, at the time of recording, the Android trackers do not.

So if you walk away and leave your keys on a table and you go out of Bluetooth range, for example, you'll get a notification on your phone or say Apple Watch with Find My, but unfortunately you don't yet on Android.

And number three, Apple's network only needs essentially one iPhone to pass by to be able to determine a location if you mark an item as lost, whereas Android's network uses multiple phones and needs to triangulate the location using a number of different Android devices, not just one.

So I'm not surprised that it is taking a lot longer to find the chipolo tag as opposed to the AirTag.

Ah, I got another notification. The keys on AirTag were seen again.

Nine minutes in, still nothing on the Android side. Come on, Android, you can do this! One eternity later. All right, it's been almost 30 minutes since I started this whole comparison, and in the time that I've received two notifications—yep, a full 30 minutes, two notifications of my lost keys on the Find My network, zero on Android.

I need to publish this video sometime this month, I think. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to Go and try to find each of the devices using the apps because I do have an approximate location and see which one is actually easier to find.

All right, let's go and see which one is going to be easier to find with the respective apps. Okay, let's see, so I definitely am not in Bluetooth range because on the iPhone it says that the AirTag is not reachable. On Android, it doesn't say anything, so it just says it was seen around 2:30, which is not that long ago actually.

So I'm surprised if it was last seen around 2:30 that was 10 minutes ago. So why didn't I get a notification saying it was seen? That doesn't make any sense because my phone is not in Bluetooth range. All right, there are some questions here that I need answered. Let's keep going and trying to find it.

Okay, directions. Oh, I get directions on the iPhone, that's kind of nice. I get to see exactly 2 minutes on my bike. I don't know why it defaults to bike. Okay, one minute walk straight ahead and on the Android, let's see, um, not as helpful. Oh, now the 'Find Nearby' has popped up. Okay, so I know that I'm definitely within range and I've got the ultra-wideband to help me locate it.

I'm just going to walk randomly in the general direction that I think the map told me. Oh, the numbers, the countdown has started. Okay, 9 ft, 'Find Nearby'. Okay, so now the 'Find Nearby' notification has popped up on Android too. I love this, it's kind of like a treasure hunt. No, that's not helping. I'm going to try and play a sound now.

Is that just my imagination or do I actually hear some sound? I definitely can hear that, but that is the sound of the Chipolo tracker.

which is super loud. Okay, okay, it's nearby. This is good, this is good. Oh yeah, I found it! So, as you saw, I found the AirTag more easily through Find My when I was using Lost Mode.

Um, and it took a long time—who knows how long it would have taken if I had sat there?

I could have been waiting all day, all week, all year on the Android side of things. But actually, what helped me find the trackers most easily was actually the volume on the Chipolo tracker, which was way louder than that on the AirTag.

Really interesting to see those differences there.

Remember when I said earlier that the Find My Device network needed multiple Android phones to be able to pinpoint a device's location?

Well, that's actually the default setting, but there is another setting that you can go in and turn on within the Android settings. It's called Network in all areas, and that means it's actually going to be able to use fewer Android phones or just one other Android phone to help pinpoint your device when you mark it as lost, especially helpful in lower traffic areas.

Now, both of the networks do have provisions to be able to show if an unknown tracker is following you, regardless of which ecosystem it's paired with.

So, say if a Find My Device tracker is following you and you have an iPhone, you're going to be able to see that notification.

And vice versa, if, say, an AirTag is following you and you have an Android phone. And there's, of course, a whole bunch of other privacy questions that come up and a deeper explanation we can go into about how the system actually works and ensuring that your location is not visible to both device manufacturers and other people, but that's a little bit beyond the scope of this video.

So if you do want to find out more about that, drop me a comment down below.

Let me know what other comparisons with these trackers you want to see, because there are so many more things that I can do. I'm thinking, why not?

Let's see if I can expense a work trip internationally, put both of the trackers in my luggage, and see which one can actually help find my lost luggage or just keep an eye on it during the trip.

Let me know, and I'll see you next time. Bye!

Apple vs Android: Find My Device Challenge

CNET is the premier destination for explaining and navigating the changing world around us. Through news, product reviews, price comparisons, and more, we’ll tell you what’s new in the parts of modern life that increasingly matter more — from health, home, and money to tech, culture, and climate — and how to get the most out of them.

Apple vs Android: Find My Device Challenge

Apple vs Android: Find My Device Challenge

Scripts