Find My Mac Goes Live For Developers

[ranReloaded]

Find My Mac Goes Live For Developers

It only makes sense that devs get it first: You don't want to loose one of those Macs with NDA-bound betas installed!!

 

[MacFly123]

Just wondering, why are they still calling the service Find My iPhone (as shown in the title bar of the screenshot)? It's time for them to rename it to Find My Device.

I have thought that for a while too. But "Find My iDevice" or something doesn't really have a ring to it. Maybe "iFind" or "iFinder" haha?

Anyone else think the UI for this is not that great? The iCloud UIs are looking really nice and uniform and then this "Find My Mac" UI doesn't fit. Look at the pics below for a comparison. I redesigned the "Find My Mac" UI to fit better with iCloud. Sorry Apple but I like mine better hehe (Last pic)

P.S. Apple please add year view to the calendar app in iCloud!

 

[bushido]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; de-de) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

useless, wifi location always tells me i'm 2 hours away from where im actually at

 

[dayneoram]

MacBook refresh with GPS and 3G, anyone?

 

[zeemeerman2]

Reminds me of the next video about recovering a stolen hacker's computer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4oB28ksiIo
Start at 3:15.
It's very interesting, funny, yet educational.

 

[hamis92]

Only a 4-digit access code? Wouldn't it be more secure to force an alphanumeric password...

 

[Westyfield2]

Used Find My iPhone yesterday... got into work and realised I'd lost it on the way in somewhere. Used the website and located it to the carpark, fortunately it had just fallen out my pocket onto the seat!


With this WiFi only locating, how can I add WiFi Access Points to its database? We've got a load at work, I've got four at home, etc. If everyone adds theirs it could massively improve the accuracy...

 

[Chupa Chupa]

MacBook refresh with GPS and 3G, anyone?

MB is dead and it's not going to be revived. I also don't see Apple putting GPS or 3G in future MBA or MBP - at least as standard. It's not even standard on iPads yet. I don't see Find My Mac as a signal this functionality will be added soon.

 

[blue22]

I rather not...

MacBook refresh with GPS and 3G, anyone?

Hell no to a GPS in my laptop!

 

[blue22]

in the future...

I would pay for "Find my keys".. that will change everything...

That's a great idea. I'm thinking that probably by the time this can technically be feasible we won't even need physical keys to open our doors anymore, just biometric signatures & authentications as that method would be more secure anyway and you can be pissed out your mind, sans the keys, and still open the door to your home.

 

[blue22]

litigious culture at it's finest...

i dont want them to return it, i want to locate it and ill find them

This maybe a bad move for Apple! Ex:
1. Your Macbook got stolen.
2. You located where it is and come to the location.
3. After you confront the *&*^ who stole your macbook.
4. He beat the *!)@# out of you and take your wallet too!
5. Lawsuit files against Apple!

Geez, I could see this all happening too. The attempt to sue I mean. However I'm sure Apple's fine print will have it covered even in an unusual scenario like this.

 

[blue22]

A New Hope...

I can't see how they can make this work without people maliciously wiping other peoples macs.

There's always that risk, but I think it's really minimal in the grand scheme of things for the average concerns of most people.

Useless. Who is gonna return a mac after it is lost or stolen?

I would return a lost/misplaced computer if I happened across it...wouldn't you?

Unless you're a heartless p***k, who wouldn't attempt to return a missing laptop?! I think most people would.

Now that's an idea, rather than remote wipe, remote encrypt! (Yes it will take a while, but so will a remote wipe if done properly)

Now that would be nice. I'm guessing we're about 5-8 years away from this becoming a reliable commercial service.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; de-de) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

useless, wifi location always tells me i'm 2 hours away from where im actually at

Exactly.

 

[tersono]

Ah finally the solution to this conundrum from Bash.org:

<erno> hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is.

 

[Jerome Morrow]

This maybe a bad move for Apple! Ex:
1. Your Macbook got stolen.
2. You located where it is and come to the location.
3. After you confront the *&*^ who stole your macbook.
4. He beat the *!)@# out of you and take your wallet too!
5. Lawsuit files against Apple!

 

[rheuter]

I am surprised no one mentioned the fact that not only Apple now "knows" where you are but also has the power to *cough* accidentally *cough* remotely wiped out our entire hard drive!

 

[littledude8209]

Please don't give your self to much of a sense of security doing this, as you said some Joe Blogs at the Apple store did it.

To perform this action from scratch you need is aprox 3 min on Google,
One small screwdriver, 5 min-10min time hands on the machine of time, and no you don't really need a genuine SL install disk.

My 10 yo son knows how to do this. (he also knows how to change a distributor cap and re-gap sparkplugs on my car, but that's another story.)

the genius had to phone into apple engineering to get help with this, so no, it wasn't just some "Joe Blogs" at the Apple store who did it. And please, show me how you can boot up my air without my firmware code, and even if you somehow did, it still asks for the code. Yeah, and what exactly are you going to do if you get my computer opened up? RAM is soldered on, and wiping the hard drive had no effect on it - i.e. it still asked for the password. Even removing the recovery partition did nothing.

 

[silentnite]

I could see it now calling the cops to report your Mac stolen and to say you know where it is. The police are way to busy with other things much more important. That is what they will tell you. It will be like pulling teeth. You'll need to fill out a report etc. I'm not going to some criminals pad looking for anything, sorry.

 

[nischenkolonie]

I would never try to get my mac back by myself. Too Dangerous.
My life is worth more than a macbook.
And if you go to Police and tell them the story of your stolen Mac and the location, they will just make a notice in their notice-book for the statistics and send you home.

So: completely Useless.

 

[macman312]

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Ah, great! Sometimes I forget where I left my Mac Pro workstation*. This will be a great help for me!

*Usually when drunk.

Haha true

But this feature will only work if there are gonna be 3G enabled macs which there probably will be.

 

[-tWv-]

I'm interested to see how this will work, will it track the wifi IP address or something? Or are there going to be GPS enabled macs in the future?

 

[fswmacguy]

Sorry to hear it.

There's LoJack for Mac, but I rarely people mention that they use it.

Have people seriously never heard of Prey?

 

[MacNewsFix]

I'm guessing this may most benefit smb/enterprise users.

In the alternative, should work in a pinch for overly protective parents or people who suspect their spouse is cheating.

 

[tallchris]

Have people seriously never heard of Prey?

I have this for my macbook, will find my mac give anything that prey doesn't?

 

[Mr$Whale]

Dog The Bounty Hunter

As others have commented, would I be able to find my stolen Alum Macbook that was jacked about a year ago here in Peru?

Or more specific, findperson who probably bought my laptop from Polvos Azules (the tech bootleg market in Lima) Still have the ID numbers and everything, and it's linked to my apple account.

 

[mutantteenager]

Maybe Apple could set up their own recovery task force? Adding a new dimension to Applecare?