That’s because Apple themselves limit access to authenticated (but supposedly anonymous - aka doesn’t matter whose) Apple IDs before allowing access to the geodatabase

Not for long, since cross compatibility with android is apparently coming.

IIRC, they need you running macos to get the data via a plugin for apple mail. If you only needed an appleID, it could likely be done in a web browser.

The cross compatibility is only for anti-stalking features, and is probably implemented in such a way that you couldn't use it to implement a tracker that works in both systems.

You're right. I think I misremembered a news article I read about a week or so ago, that I can no longer find.

What I don't get is why nobody seems to have done the work to reverse engineer the onboarding workflow, and why Apple doesn't allow onboarding on Mac devices. I had to buy a (used) iPhone just to onboard AirTags, despite onboarding Mac devices works without one.