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Cautionary Tale: Find My iPhone

A

aygwm

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 4, 2008
45
15
It was my nightmare scenario: on vacation, iPhone camera full of unforgettable, one of a kind photos, and then I lose my iPhone. No worries, I have Find My iPhone enabled. My girlfriend has an iPhone, so I thought I'd just fire up Safari, log into MobileMe and hope to find the phone. WRONG!
Once I typed the URL in her phone, I immediately got a redirected webpage, asking if I'd like to try out MobileMe (my girlfriend can't afford the $99). Again and again I tried to get to the log in screen so I could access MY account and find my phone, but no, it's not possible. Okay, I have my iPad with me. Again, the same problem. I can't log in to use the Find My iPhone feature.
So I was forced to drive 40 miles back to my hotel because luckily I also packed my MacBookPro. It had no problems logging in, and there was the blue light indicating the position of my iPhone. But now I had to drive 40 miles back to where it was. What if someone found it in the meantime? I wanted real time information of its' location, and since my MacBook is not tethered, I was screwed. (Upon coming home, I called Apple, and was told Find my iPhone only works on a computer. WTF? I can't imagine the iPhone is not capable of performing that function. Certainly there must be a back door URL that bypasses the screen I was seeing? But Apple's servers weren't playing ball, seeing my GF's phone and the iPad as mobile devices, thus serving up alternate webpages that were no use to me. How convenient is it to always find a computer to use this feature, especially when you're on the road? Any ideas how to prevent this in the future anyone?

Happy Ending: I went back to where my laptop said the phone was. By this time, it was raining. ****. The extra 90 minutes of drive time might have made all the difference. But there my phone was, in a small puddle face down. When I reached for it, I recoiled in horror, as there were clear tire markings visible on the rubber case. "It's toast," I thought. Amazingly, it powered up with no issues. There was not a scratch on it. A CAR HAD RUN OVER MY PHONE AND IT WASN'T EVEN DAMAGED!

So thanks Apple for building a sturdy phone. But please make Find My Iphone work on mobile devices.
 
No offense but you didn't look hard enough. There's an app called "Find my iPhone" in the App Store made by Apple and you can DL + install it on the iPhone/iPad of your choice and track your OTHER iPad/iPhone via the app..

FAIL on your part.
 
aygwm said:
It was my nightmare scenario: on vacation, iPhone camera full of unforgettable, one of a kind photos, and then I lose my iPhone. No worries, I have Find My iPhone enabled. My girlfriend has an iPhone, so I thought I'd just fire up Safari, log into MobileMe and hope to find the phone. WRONG!
Once I typed the URL in her phone, I immediately got a redirected webpage, asking if I'd like to try out MobileMe (my girlfriend can't afford the $99). Again and again I tried to get to the log in screen so I could access MY account and find my phone, but no, it's not possible. Okay, I have my iPad with me. Again, the same problem. I can't log in to use the Find My iPhone feature.
So I was forced to drive 40 miles back to my hotel because luckily I also packed my MacBookPro. It had no problems logging in, and there was the blue light indicating the position of my iPhone. But now I had to drive 40 miles back to where it was. What if someone found it in the meantime? I wanted real time information of its' location, and since my MacBook is not tethered, I was screwed. (Upon coming home, I called Apple, and was told Find my iPhone only works on a computer. WTF? I can't imagine the iPhone is not capable of performing that function. Certainly there must be a back door URL that bypasses the screen I was seeing? But Apple's servers weren't playing ball, seeing my GF's phone and the iPad as mobile devices, thus serving up alternate webpages that were no use to me. How convenient is it to always find a computer to use this feature, especially when you're on the road? Any ideas how to prevent this in the future anyone?

Happy Ending: I went back to where my laptop said the phone was. By this time, it was raining. ****. The extra 90 minutes of drive time might have made all the difference. But there my phone was, in a small puddle face down. When I reached for it, I recoiled in horror, as there were clear tire markings visible on the rubber case. "It's toast," I thought. Amazingly, it powered up with no issues. There was not a scratch on it. A CAR HAD RUN OVER MY PHONE AND IT WASN'T EVEN DAMAGED!

So thanks Apple for building a sturdy phone. But please make Find My Iphone work on mobile devices.
Click to expand...

That's why Apple put out an app in the appstore for "find my iPhone."
 
"No offense but you're an idiot."

Guilty as charged. I am not aware of every app in the App store. Thanks for the kind and thoughtful advice.
 
aygwm said:
"No offense but you're an idiot."

Guilty as charged. I am not aware of every app in the App store. Thanks for the kind and thoughtful advice.
Click to expand...

Actually I changed my post on re-read due to it being more harsher then I intended it.

:(
 
what URL did you type in? If you type is me.com it asks you to install FINDMYIPHONE

Its not that complicated...
 
aygwm said:
"No offense but you're an idiot."

Guilty as charged. I am not aware of every app in the App store. Thanks for the kind and thoughtful advice.
Click to expand...

dont get hard on yourself. this is a common issue for many apple users.
 
what URL did you type in? If you type is me.com it asks you to install FINDMYIPHONE

Its not that complicated...

Me.com. From my GF's phone, I was redirected to a sign up screen for MobileMe. I was not given an option to install Find My iPhone. Obviously I would have done this if given the option. When I called Apple today, the operator never mentioned this App, and specifically said the feature had to be done on a computer. I follow all things Apple pretty closely, and never knew about this app. My point in posting was to educate myself, as well as others. Yes, obviously a Fail on my part, but jeez. I remember when the Mac community provided information, not shame to those who didn't have all the answers.
 
aygwm said:
what URL did you type in? If you type is me.com it asks you to install FINDMYIPHONE

Its not that complicated...

Me.com. From my GF's phone, I was redirected to a sign up screen for MobileMe. I was not given an option to install Find My iPhone. Obviously I would have done this if given the option. When I called Apple today, the operator never mentioned this App, and specifically said the feature had to be done on a computer. I follow all things Apple pretty closely, and never knew about this app. My point in posting was to educate myself, as well as others. Yes, obviously a Fail on my part, but jeez. I remember when the Mac community provided information, not shame to those who didn't have all the answers.
Click to expand...

Don't be too hard on yourself, this site has become the 4chan of Apple information.
 
So the lesson here is to actually read those emails Apple sends out to MobileMe customers letting them know about new things, like the Find my iPhone iOS app for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. If this was posted a year ago, it would have been much different, but since Apple actually listened to people and made an iOS app, it is your own fault if you don't know about the app. They have sent out an email, the app has been posted about on many websites, and I think it's even featured on the MobileMe site.

At least the story had a happy ending.
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7)

You should have used Google Maps Street View and scrolled around till you spotted it.
 
aygwm said:
It was my nightmare scenario: on vacation, iPhone camera full of unforgettable, one of a kind photos, and then I lose my iPhone. No worries, I have Find My iPhone enabled. My girlfriend has an iPhone, so I thought I'd just fire up Safari, log into MobileMe and hope to find the phone. WRONG!
Once I typed the URL in her phone, I immediately got a redirected webpage, asking if I'd like to try out MobileMe (my girlfriend can't afford the $99). Again and again I tried to get to the log in screen so I could access MY account and find my phone, but no, it's not possible. Okay, I have my iPad with me. Again, the same problem. I can't log in to use the Find My iPhone feature.
So I was forced to drive 40 miles back to my hotel because luckily I also packed my MacBookPro. It had no problems logging in, and there was the blue light indicating the position of my iPhone. But now I had to drive 40 miles back to where it was. What if someone found it in the meantime? I wanted real time information of its' location, and since my MacBook is not tethered, I was screwed. (Upon coming home, I called Apple, and was told Find my iPhone only works on a computer. WTF? I can't imagine the iPhone is not capable of performing that function. Certainly there must be a back door URL that bypasses the screen I was seeing? But Apple's servers weren't playing ball, seeing my GF's phone and the iPad as mobile devices, thus serving up alternate webpages that were no use to me. How convenient is it to always find a computer to use this feature, especially when you're on the road? Any ideas how to prevent this in the future anyone?

Happy Ending: I went back to where my laptop said the phone was. By this time, it was raining. ****. The extra 90 minutes of drive time might have made all the difference. But there my phone was, in a small puddle face down. When I reached for it, I recoiled in horror, as there were clear tire markings visible on the rubber case. "It's toast," I thought. Amazingly, it powered up with no issues. There was not a scratch on it. A CAR HAD RUN OVER MY PHONE AND IT WASN'T EVEN DAMAGED!

So thanks Apple for building a sturdy phone. But please make Find My Iphone work on mobile devices.
Click to expand...






There's something fishy about this story. How could you go to me.com on iDevice and not see this???
 

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PBF said:
There's something fishy about this story. How could you go to me.com on iDevice and not see this???
Click to expand...

That is exactly what I was thinking! I hadn't checked it myself but it seemed kind of silly if Apple didn't have a page like that up.
 
Find my phone is .99 in the Android app store. You just send it the text "find me" and it replies with a GPS location and Google Maps is free.

$99 for Mobile me for it to work for iPhone? :eek:
 
Considering me.com loads up a page directing you to install the "Find my iPhone" app on both the iPhone and iPad, you frankly apparently just let your anger or whatever gloss over your common sense. me.com, as on the desktop, has never worked on iOS devices.
 
Of course you said it was in a puddle.... good thing that puddle didn't ruin your phone. :rolleyes:
Guess sitting in a puddle for 90minues didn't ruin your i.... luckiest person in the world.
Cough bullpoo cough.
 
For what it's worth my wife lost her iPad and I was using my iPad to track it down. Like you, I was not aware of the Find my iPhone app that I could have downloaded, but I have Atomic Browser on my iPad and I'm able to adjust which browser it announces itself as when I browse to websites. I could not get to Find my Iphone on Mobileme using the Safari browser on my iPad but when I set the Atomic Browser to spoof itself as regular Safari 4, it worked just fine.
 
If it still worked after sitting face down in a puddle in the rain, (and being driven over0 you must have had a good case it - Otterbox? Was this the iPhone 4?
 
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