By Jesse Hollington
Publication Date: 2026-08-16 15:30:00
In what could be one of the slowest burns in tech history, Google finally launched the Google Pixel Tag at Made by Google 2026 this week.
It’s pretty much what we expected — but the jury’s still out on whether that’s a good thing in mid-2026.
I once thought it was exhausting following the rumor mill leading up to Apple’s AirTag, but the Pixel Tag took that to a new level.
After all, Apple was arguably breaking new ground in 2021. Whatever Google was building over the past three years could only refine the art. That became even more apparent as we watched its Android partners whizz past it.
That’s not to say that the Pixel Tag isn’t a good product — it surely is. The question is whether it has a reason to exist at all.
