In each of these cases, the suggestions offered are to reset the device, the AirTag or the AirPods, whatever is misbehaving.

It's bitterly ironic, as many of the entries in Apple's AirPods support user forum are of the kind "Lost my AirPods," asking for help about how to find AirPods. (Note: to intentionally keep track of your own AirPods, you have to have an iCloud account and have turned on the "Find My" capability for the AirPods in question.)

Also:Apple shut down my iCloud account for five days, no warning, no explanation, no excuse

Multiple inquiries with Apple public relations were not answered at press time. It's worth noting that Apple has posted a note that promises "a series of updates that we plan to introduce later this year," which include something such as "precision finding" for AirTags, and "refining unwanted tracking alert logic."

The note makes no mention of unwanted alerts.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Apple's software is not always able to recognize my AirPods as my own. The way that AirPods connect - or don't connect - is a frequent source of frustration, in my experience. 

Also:Remember when Apple seemed to know about their own products?

I have an iPhone, a MacBook, two iPad Pros, and an iPad mini. They all want, at certain times, to grab the AirPods as their Bluetooth output device. 

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This can lead to true comedy when the device Idon'twant to use grabs the AirPods, thereby blocking it from the device with which I would really like to use the device. 

A frequently occurring example is when I am walking out of the house, with the iPhone in my pocket, wearing one of the AirPods, and I say, "Hey, Siri, call Tommy." Unbeknownst to me, the AirPod has presumptively connected, without my knowing it, to my MacBook instead of my phone. 

And so the message I get back is that Siri can't make a call right now. Whereupon, I have to take out the iPhone and select the AirPod to get it to connect. 

The result is that AirPods have lots of options, but don't know what you really want to do. 

Also:One thing Apple will for sure announce at WWDC (and four more it almost certainly will)

What can one conclude? The fact that the same problem crops up in more than one kind of device, in both AirTags and AirPods, suggests that the problem is larger than individual kinds of devices. The fact that the problem is intermittent, moreover, suggests something is periodically breaking down. 

And the fact that AirTags and AirPods are associated by iCloud with an owner via a unique I.D. suggests that the problem is less a Bluetooth problem and more a problem with iCloud services. It could conceivably be that iCloud is periodically losing the association between devices and unique identifiers. 

All that is conjecture. Without Apple's response, we can only guess. Apple will host its annual developer event, WWDC, from June 6th through 10th. Perhaps that may bring some clarity. 

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