Lesson 1-never leave your phone unattended.
Lesson 2-never leave your wallet unattended.
Lesson 3-car keys, same as above.
Lesson 4-anything of value, same as above.
Don't expect LE to do much, they have much bigger fist to fry. If they do catch who took it, by all means press charges.
Agreed. A phone is like a toothbrush. Never lend it to anyone. Unless I am in a locked place with only two or three rooms and as much people, I never leave any Apple stuff unattended. I often get asked to keep an eye on people's belongings, which I gladly do, but still move my computer and iPad even when going for a pee. Or a book. On the other hand my MacBook Pro may not have been so happy with so much moving around, considering the bad sectors on the drive.
On the other hand I often left my Nokia unattended for up to half an hour. Was never stolen nor even touched
if i was a thief, i'd dunk the stolen phone in water and sell the device for parts, or i'd take it to an apple store and get an out of warranty replacement. new iphone for $270 which i can sell for $500+
Depends on the model. I am not sure an out-of-warranty replacement for the 5s is just $270.
Just trying to figure out if there's a way to recover it. Sorry, I don't like bending over to criminals if that's something you're inclined to doing. Also, I don't have $800 just lying around, obviously. I'm not rich.
*cough**cough* if you were able to spit for a top-of-the-line, 64GB and unlocked phone while perfectly fine 16GB models, including previous-generation models and the 5c, are available, you may not qualify as rich, but definitely part of a class of people with a significant amount of disposable income.
I am not rich, and I now must choose between a SSD for the Mac alone and no NAS, or a higher-performance spinning HDD AND a NAS. That is not being rich.
Wouldn't they be able to identify the stolen IMEI and reject it/report it to LE?
They would be
able to, but they would never actually
do it. They have a non-interventionist policy when it comes to dealing with stolen devices. They know it's stolen but won't do anything.
Apple's going to record the serial number and ask the person brining it in for ID.
Apple never asks for any piece of ID. Merely ask you for the registered name, and even if it doesn't match, they will proceed with replacement.
However, I am suggesting some ways Apple can be instrumental in preventing theft of its products and keeping user retention.
Cynically, they will retain users because they already know their products are best. So even if they're stolen, victims will likely buy another Apple product anyway.
Furthermore, I did not "carelessly" leave my phone done in a room full of strangers.
When there's so much value left undefended, everyone is a stranger. Never trust anyone. I got swindled many times before because I trusted people too much.
They need to be hunted down, prosecuted, and brought to justice. If you disagree with that, then it's obvious you are benefiting from some sort of business from blackmarket iPhone sales or are just 11 years old and are totally ignorant.
The reality is that, more often than not, law enforcement will do exactly
nothing to track down the thief, whatever the amount of valid information you send them. You may have a suspect in head, have its precise physical description, location of the phone, this person may already have been arrested before, but they won't move their butt to at least ask this person a few question. Simple, chasing petty criminals for the benefit of the common citizen doesn't pay. It does, however, to give them hefty tickets for overdue park-o-meter, speed violations, etc.
It's not profitable to fish for one-off $1000 criminals when you can fish for thousands of $100 violators.