Useless Rant : Password when closing the device

[Ratatapa]

This is mostly a rant, because I sent, millions of emails to apple and still nothing.

They keep wanting to sell 'security' oh if you loose your iPhone you can looking for it with find my iPhone

Ok fine cool

but that is ****ing useless if someone close the phone because ANYONE CAN CLOSE THE PHONE SINCE YOU DONT HAVE A PASSWORD TO TURN OFF THE DEVICE.

I find it stupid that in 2013, you have to JB your phone to be able to set a turn off password.


Ok that was my morning rant, now I feel better

flame all you want!

[pat park]

I see your point and it may be a good idea for some. May not apply to everyones needs. I hope Apple gets back with you to resolve this issue.

[r2shyyou]

Originally Posted by Ratatapa

This is mostly a rant, because I sent, millions of emails to apple and still nothing.

They keep wanting to sell 'security' oh if you loose your iPhone you can looking for it with find my iPhone

Ok fine cool

but that is ****ing useless if someone close the phone because ANYONE CAN CLOSE THE PHONE SINCE YOU DONT HAVE A PASSWORD TO TURN OFF THE DEVICE.

I find it stupid that in 2013, you have to JB your phone to be able to set a turn off password.


Ok that was my morning rant, now I feel better

flame all you want!

Your rant is not "useless" if you now feel better.

Also, why would anyone "flame"? This is one of the more obvious missing features that will almost certainly make its way into an upcoming iOS update. I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't.

[Ratatapa]

I call it useless rant, because by ranting on here will not make Apple change their minds, and sending 20000 emails didnt make them change their mines either so that'S why i call it useless

As for Pat Park I know it's not for everyone, i just want an option so that you turn it on if you want too.

That way it pleases everyone

[Mrg02d]

It's pretty useless if you are trying to get apple to actually implement this in an upcoming ios, but I definitely find it very useful. I never really thought about it either, but now agree it should be a setting. It should have been obvious actually...

Apple never intended , find my iPhone , to be used for stopping crime. They intended it to be used by you when you lose your device. Apple has a weird philosophy when it comes to crime for some reason.

[RoboCop001]

Yeah I always wanted this feature. Submitted a feature request too.
It makes sense!

[Fireproof!]

Never really thought about it before, but it makes good sense to be able to require password to turn the phone off. As you said - would certainly help in the case of theft.

Still, I have found Find My iPhone very helpful many times, in locating the devices when my daughters or wife misplace them.

[aristobrat]

Originally Posted by Ratatapa

They keep wanting to sell 'security' oh if you loose your iPhone you can looking for it with find my iPhone

Ok fine cool

but that is ****ing useless if someone close the phone because ANYONE CAN CLOSE THE PHONE SINCE YOU DONT HAVE A PASSWORD TO TURN OFF THE DEVICE.

I'm all for adding that optional feature, but I don't see how that will help in all cases.

Every device needs a way to be reset when it becomes frozen or unresponsive. On the iPhone, that's done by holding both the home and power buttons. That's the equivalent of yanking the power cord out of the computer, and I don't think there's any way to require a password for that, because that feature needs to work even if the OS on the phone is completely locked up (and can't prompt for a password).

All it takes then is for someone to put the phone in DFU mode while its rebooting, and then the phone is essentially offline, and no more Find My iPhone, right?

[mKTank]

Pretty much. Anybody who knows what they're doing would just hold down the home button and the power button and that forces it off.

[FlatlinerG]

Definitely not a useless rant. It got something off your chest and helps you get on with your day.

As far as the issue you present, I can see the idea and it's a good one. My main two concerns are with resetting, as that can't really be prevented, and if someone really wanted to turn it off they could just let the battery fully drain out. A relatively simple task since you can launch the camera from the lockscreen without entering the passcode.

[r2shyyou]

Originally Posted by aristobrat

I'm all for adding that optional feature, but I don't see how that will help in all cases.

Every device needs a way to be reset when it becomes frozen or unresponsive. On the iPhone, that's done by holding both the home and power buttons. That's the equivalent of yanking the power cord out of the computer, and I don't think there's any way to require a password for that, because that feature needs to work even if the OS on the phone is completely locked up (and can't prompt for a password).

All it takes then is for someone to put the phone in DFU mode while its rebooting, and then the phone is essentially offline, and no more Find My iPhone, right?

Yup, DFU mode would almost certainly be able to get around this, which makes sense, as you pointed out. But I imagine that not everyone who's stolen an iOS device knows about this so, to me, a feature such as this has some value.

Originally Posted by FlatlinerG

Definitely not a useless rant. It got something off your chest and helps you get on with your day.

As far as the issue you present, I can see the idea and it's a good one. My main two concerns are with resetting, as that can't really be prevented, and if someone really wanted to turn it off they could just let the battery fully drain out. A relatively simple task since you can launch the camera from the lockscreen without entering the passcode.

Right, but the point, at least to me, is that while the battery is being drained, the phone could be tracked & located.

[Tyler23]

Originally Posted by FlatlinerG

Definitely not a useless rant. It got something off your chest and helps you get on with your day.

As far as the issue you present, I can see the idea and it's a good one. My main two concerns are with resetting, as that can't really be prevented, and if someone really wanted to turn it off they could just let the battery fully drain out. A relatively simple task since you can launch the camera from the lockscreen without entering the passcode.

Yes but before the battery drained you'd be able to locate the device

[jrswizzle]

TBH I'd never thought about this before....but,

my wife left her phone at a movie theater one night. We went back not an hour later and it was gone - the staff never found it and neither did we. We also never saw it pull up on FindMyiPhone - assumed it had either died or the perp had turned it off and restored it - thus erasing all my wife's stuff and it's connection to FMI.....

I have a feeling we'll begin to see security implemented in many areas of the iPhone in the future through print scanners and such. Eventually it would be nice if the "home button" had a fingerprint scanner in it and:

-different fingers do different things (i.e. shortcuts to different apps, settings etc)
-fingerprint locking/security for major things (unlocking the phone, turning the phone off)
-could serve as a form of UI navigation (i.e. trackpad)

[FlatlinerG]

Originally Posted by Tyler23

Yes but before the battery drained you'd be able to locate the device

I suppose it would depend on how quickly you had an opportunity to look for it and how much battery life was remaining. Good point though.

[Ratatapa]

I know that every theft will find a way but

1) It can just drain the battery to close it
Yes that's true, but it's a gamble, if your phone is exemple 75% when you loose it, it gives you time to find it on find my iPhone before the battery drains

2) A Thief can just reset it by holdng home and power

Ok yes he can reset it so what? The phone will still come back on and resign on find my iPhone or something due to 3g

The reason I want this feature is simple, as for now you loose your iPhone and a thief comes, holds power and close it. BANG your done for, because he can just keep it close for like 2 days then bring it on so you can't look for it (to format it or w/e

But if you have the password to close it, w/e he drains the battery or just restart it, you still have some time to either log on find my iphone or launch a software like prey to find your phone

[VulchR]

The OP has a point. Increasingly it is hard to find a company that will insure an iPhone, and even more rare are insurance companies that pay out on valid claims. Thus, I think the mobile phone industry should do what what the automobile industry has done: build-in safeguards against theft (which, incidentally has cut car theft dramatically in the UK).

I think the best solution would be to put some sort of security hardware directly into the CPU so that (1) it is on whenever the phone is on and (2) the hardware cannot be removed or altered. The hardware should lock the iPhone to an iTunes or iCloud account that stolen phone can be encrypted (I think this is done already in the iPhone, but if it isn't it should be), located and disabled until returned to the proper owner.

There has to be a way of doing this, and it is the one area of the mobile phone experience that has not plateaued. (Indeed, if one added waterproofing, then the added value to the phone would be very worthwhile).

[Small White Car]

Originally Posted by Ratatapa

The reason I want this feature is simple, as for now you loose your iPhone and a thief comes, holds power and close it. BANG your done for, because he can just keep it close for like 2 days then bring it on so you can't look for it (to format it or w/e

But if you have the password to close it, w/e he drains the battery or just restart it, you still have some time to either log on find my iphone or launch a software like prey to find your phone

Sorry, there's already a way around this. Your phone is gone, they'll get it to a computer that can wipe it, and your little password plan does nothing.

[Ratatapa]

You still have time to track it before he resets it on the pc

----------

And yes about the jammer

But your thinking far


Most of the common thief won't have that

[Small White Car]

Originally Posted by Ratatapa

You still have time to track it before he resets it on the pc

I'm left to wonder, though, what good will knowing "he was headed west on the freeway for the last 4 minutes before it disappeared" really do you?

We all know that DRM on media files don't stop online pirates, but only serves to annoy legitimate customers. I've yet to hear of a hardware loss-prevention plan that doesn't 'do exactly the same thing. This idea is no different.

If I don't like DRM on digital media I'm hard pressed to understand why I should suddenly like it in this form.

'Find my Phone' was only ever intended to find lost phones, not stolen ones. The more you try to make it be more than it is, the more clear it becomes that it's impossible.

[Ratatapa]

What buggles me is that your trying to defend an option that should be there as an optional option

I'm not telling that they need to add the option for 100% of us

I'm saying they need to add the option to IOS and who ever wants to use it can

If you want to loose your iphone and 30sec after not been able to track it it's fine

But I have alot of stuff on my phone and all, and i'll do what I can to try to get it back

[C DM]

It sounds like at least a decent option to have available, at the very least for the particular circumstances described in the thread. The thing is that for the vast majority of average phone users this wouldn't be an option that they would need or even want, and could even cause issues if its turned on and the average user just doesn't remember their password and runs into a problem turning off their phone, which is a basic feature that pretty much just has to work.

Apple makes things for the average user out there--and the average user is unfortunately a very basic one at best--so they try not to complicate things and even surface extraneous options that would likely be not useful (and sometimes worse) for the average user. So, despite the fact that an option like this one would be useful to some--and there are many others even more basic and useful ones--Apple will likely not implement it simply due to that whole design for the average user philosophy.