> iPhone still does bluetooth transmissions/pings even in airplane mode ... the only way to disable any transmissions is to turn off the device

I used to be under the impression that:

- Airplane Mode via Control Center icon, true.

- Cellular, WiFi, and Bluetooth off, via Settings, not true.

Meaning, if you turn those off specifically, you are not talking to towers or access points or broadcasting a persistent bluetooth ID.

Having Kagi'd a bit just now, maybe the thing that can't be turned off is NFC?

https://www.simplymac.com/ios/can-you-turn-off-nfc-iphone

If that's the case, then I'd hold this as a different threat model than not being able to turn off WiFi and Cellular.

Very curious if an iPhone or iPad with all accessible settings off, including for NFC turning off Apple Pay, NFC tag reading, etc., leaving only this background NFC on, if there are still persistent identifiers being broadcast.

Yes in settings it turns it completely off. I verified it once with a BT sniffer.

Bluetooth's the same RF chip as wifi in new phones isn't it? Can't just exacto knife a trace on the board without murdering everything I take it?

I could be wrong, but on a lot of mobile SOCs all of the modems are in the same chip as the CPU. I think you would have better luck removing the connection to the antenna

iPhones will transmit bluetooth beacons even if turned off. Fortunately the battery goes completely flat after a couple of weeks or so and then they no longer do. Unfortunately this is not very healthy for the battery.

I've turned off find my device on my device.

Although, I am still using 17.7.2 that won't stop nagging me to upgrade to iOS 26.2.

I don't want to because I know I'll hate it.

you can kill the ota nagging very easily without any side effects, try searching for tvos profile

Wasn't aware of this, thanks!

Also found out that the profiles also expire, so you need to update those in order to skip the update nagging. Apple's lolling all the way.