Google seems determined that Android devices can have their own "Search" network, similar to the one that Apple has just launched in which all its devices help to locate each other.
The history of iOS and Android is full of features that pass from one platform to the other. And it seems that Google is going to add one more point to that story with the inclusion of a network similar to "Search", Apple's new search system where millions of iPhones, iPads and Macs around the world can help you locate any device lost or stolen from Apple. This network allows devices without internet connectivity to use the connection of other "strange" devices to locate themselves on the map and thus help their owner to locate them.
According to XDA-Developers, the latest beta of Google Play Services includes traces of a service called “Find My Device Network”, in which “your phone will help locate your devices and those of other people”. We do not know the details of this future service, which devices will be able to use it and with which version of Android. If we take into account the absolute numbers, Android has a huge advantage over iOS, but if we take into account the devices updated to the latest versions of the operating system, it is another story.
This is undoubtedly one of the great improvements that Apple has introduced in the latest updates, and that in iOS 15 it will go further with the possibility of locating devices even turned off or without battery. iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max and any other element to which we have placed an AirTag, we can locate them on our Map with location updates if it were on the move, an invaluable help in finding lost objects and discouraging those who think about keeping what is not theirs. It is not strange that Android wants to incorporate it.