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pubwvj

macrumors 68000
Oct 1, 2004
1,901
208
Mountains of Vermont
I'm glad Apple has finally implemented this sort of thing. I've wanted it for a long time, but not just with the iPhone. Apple should offer this across the board. Almost all hardware is now on the net so this could help greatly reduce theft, catch criminals and return equipment to the rightful owners. Apple should offer an option when you register your hardware to turn on "Find Me". Lots of 3rd parties trying to do this but integrating it deep is the solution. Only the OEM like Apple can do that.

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/
http://HollyGraphicArt.com/
http://NoNAIS.org
 

mac jones

macrumors 68040
Apr 6, 2006
3,257
2
(Seems i remember a flick with Kim Basinger and a cell phone).

Lets's see....race against the clock. shadowy characters in dive bars, sketchy neighborhoods , hi tech pursuit.

I wish I had though of this first :D
 

diesel

macrumors 6502a
Aug 3, 2007
807
25
I found an iPhone with an 02 sim card inside. It soon got blocked so i couldn't call any of the owner's contacts so they could help get the owner reunited with the phone. As i could not find the rightful owner i have kept it but i can only listen to music and use some apps. I want it to make calls now.



you serious? Sounds like you made no effort to "reunite" it with the owner. It would only take you a second or two to look up the name of the iphone which most likely is setup with the actual name of the owner, then based on that look at the contacts list and call a few contacts from YOUR own phone to get a hold of the owner. Or just return it to O2, i'm sure they would be able to get it back to the owner.

Ridiculous that you would even post what you did here
 

big_malk

macrumors 6502a
Aug 7, 2005
557
1
Scotland
I like to keep the auto-lock and PIN set so if someone picks up my iPhone they can't mess about with it, either a thief calling expensive numbers or my friends sending inappropriate texts to people for laughs. But, that means if anyone found my iPhone and tried to find my contact details they couldn't, and if I was in some accident or something no one could find an ICE number.
Obviously I can send a number to display via Find my iPhone, but it's still not ideal.
 

Cousin Dirk

macrumors 6502a
Jan 1, 2008
512
3
London, UK
Find my iPhone is a good start, but there's some things that could be better.

1. Password lock on the switch that enables/disables the feature
2. Disable power off and volume changes
3. Is there anything that could be remotely shut off to save battery life? The longer it has charge = the longer it can be tracked.
4. Something to make the phone seem unusable to whoever stole it. A pseudo-Brick my iPhone feature combined with serial number tracking.

I agree with most of those. Maybe point 3 should instead enable a "power save" mode that forces the iPhone to power down everything except what it needs for Find My iPhone to function, to get as much power as it can out of the battery. I also like the idea of being able to remotely brick it... although I think you're a bit nuts if you haven't enabled the passcode lock which kinda covers that.
 

f7digital

macrumors newbie
Jun 28, 2009
6
0
I found a phone too...

Now it wasn't an iPhone mind you, but I did this! If you are a Sprint customer you may be familiar with their "family locator" service. I've got my 4 kids on the plan and its nice once-in-a while to locate them and assure myself they haven't been kidnapped to Mexico, but are still at their friends house.

Once my daughter's phone was stolen with her back pack right out of class. Over the next few days I tracked it and finally got a fairly accurate hit which narrowed it to an apartment building. (I knew I only had about 6 doors to knock on) And, guess what --nailed it on the 2nd one! Got the phone back!

Why are there so many haters and doubters of the Chicago story? I can totally see it happening. And I'm glad if I ever do lose my iPhone this is possible.
 

joro

macrumors 68020
Jun 11, 2009
2,361
41
Virginia
I agree with most of those. Maybe point 3 should instead enable a "power save" mode that forces the iPhone to power down everything except what it needs for Find My iPhone to function, to get as much power as it can out of the battery. I also like the idea of being able to remotely brick it... although I think you're a bit nuts if you haven't enabled the passcode lock which kinda covers that.

Or an alternative to bricking is doing a remote wipe – while it doesn’t get your phone back at least you don’t have sensitive information out there.
 

Cousin Dirk

macrumors 6502a
Jan 1, 2008
512
3
London, UK
Or an alternative to bricking is doing a remote wipe – while it doesn’t get your phone back at least you don’t have sensitive information out there.

Of course, the problem with that is as soon as you wipe the phone you lose the ability to locate it. It is very much a last resort.
 
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