Find my iPhone improvements

[crashoverride77]

Hey
As was recently in the news Samsung and Microsoft will follow suite and will implement their anti theft measures (I guess partly due to the EU ruling).
I always thought it would be a good idea to add a feature to ios so that you cannot even turn the phone off or access control panel as soon as find my iPhone is used, eg requiring pass code for these. Granted it may take a while to realise that phone is lost but I still think it would be great. Even if the phone is turned off it has to be turned on at one point and as soon as that happens you need passcode/Apple ID to turn it back off or use control panel (airplane mode)
Any other ideas?

 

[fredcintra]

Hey
As was recently in the news Samsung and Microsoft will follow suite and will implement their anti theft measures (I guess partly due to the EU ruling).
I always thought it would be a good idea to add a feature to ios so that you cannot even turn the phone off or access control panel as soon as find my iPhone is used, eg requiring pass code for these. Granted it may take a while to realise that phone is lost but I still think it would be great. Even if the phone is turned off it has to be turned on at one point and as soon as that happens you need passcode/Apple ID to turn it back off or use control panel (airplane mode)
Any other ideas?

you can activate lost mode, or lock your phone, Think this 2 options are enough, also the thief would need your iCloud ID/password to do anything on your phone thru itunes because of activation lock

 

[crashoverride77]

you can activate lost mode, or lock your phone, Think this 2 options are enough, also the thief would need your iCloud ID/password to do anything on your phone thru itunes because of activation lock

But even if I do this they could still power off the phone and use control centre. Right?

 

[C DM]

But even if I do this they could still power off the phone and use control centre. Right?

One can easily eject the SIM to essentially disable the cell signal and/or put the phone in some metal box and run down the battery when it comes to fairly simply bypassing any power off protection.

 

[crashoverride77]

One can easily eject the SIM to essentially disable the cell signal and/or put the phone in some metal box and run down the battery when it comes to fairly simply bypassing any power off protection.

I agree but than this would also be the people that probably spent time hacking Touch ID. I would say 9 out of 10 times the iPhone is lost rather than stolen and the people finding it will still most likely turn it off.
This happened to a friend of mine while jogging and the phone got turned off immediately. He was only able to see it with find my iPhone briefly, 1 or 2 days after it was lost. It's at that time as soon as find my iPhone is used that you need the Apple ID or passcode to turn if off or use control panel (or do anything essentially freezing it in the lockscreen state with no use at all). This would just help to track the phone longer and more constantly in most cases, at least until the battery dies.
By the way the phone did eventually get returned to him due to activation lock, so that's pretty good #

 

[C DM]

I agree but than this would also be the people that probably spent time hacking Touch ID. I would say 9 out of 10 times the iPhone is lost rather than stolen and the people finding it will still most likely turn it off.
This happened to a friend of mine while jogging and the phone got turned off immediately. He was only able to see it with find my iPhone briefly, 1 or 2 days after it was lost. It's at that time as soon as find my iPhone is used that you need the Apple ID or passcode to turn if off or use control panel (or do anything essentially freezing it in the lockscreen state with no use at all). This would just help to track the phone longer and more constantly in most cases, at least until the battery dies.
By the way the phone did eventually get returned to him due to activation lock, so that's pretty good #

What I'm saying is that as soon as there are restrictions to turn the phone off most people that would actually turn it off upon finding it will instead pop the SIM (otherwise why would they bother turning it off to begin with).

 

[PNutts]

But even if I do this they could still power off the phone and use control centre. Right?

Control Center can be disabled on the Lock Screen so it won't be available.

 

[goobot]

Just force it off with the power + home trick.

 

[kurolap]

I would love to see this and I believe it's a common sense fix that when you TURN OFF the phone, you need a password, that way the thieves cannot turn off iPhones that they stole and we can track them.

The only problem is the power button with the home button trick

 

[crashoverride77]

I would love to see this and I believe it's a common sense fix that when you TURN OFF the phone, you need a password, that way the thieves cannot turn off iPhones that they stole and we can track them.

The only problem is the power button with the home button trick

Exactly but something I'm sure could be improved.

 

[kurolap]

Man there should be a department at apple called "common sense" and I'd love to run it using your people's suggestions. I have about 5 things that would happen right away of course

 

[rorschach]

I would love to see this and I believe it's a common sense fix that when you TURN OFF the phone, you need a password, that way the thieves cannot turn off iPhones that they stole and we can track them.

The only problem is the power button with the home button trick

Sometimes touch stops working and a restart fixes it. What happens when that occurs? You wouldn't be able to use your phone until the battery died many hours later.

 

[crashoverride77]

Man there should be a department at apple called "common sense" and I'd love to run it using your people's suggestions. I have about 5 things that would happen right away of course

Yeah agree, I always think I have no real tech and coding knowledge but I could just sit at apple and use common sense to fix some issues that seem so obvious.

I always use the music app as an example. Common sense was definitely not used of how to create a playlist. Instead of just having a little icon to add songs to your playlist, you actually have to go into the playlist menu. Than you have to add/create playlist and than you have to browse through all the songs and find the one you were just listening too. Than you can add it and have to rinse and repeat if you find another song you like. No common sense as you need 10 steps rather than 2.

 

[scaredpoet]

Yeah agree, I always think I have no real tech and coding knowledge but I could just sit at apple and use common sense to fix some issues that seem so obvious.

The thing is, common sense isn't so common.

For starters, I can think of a number of situations (some maybe life or death) where a quick shutdown of a phone would be *required*, and requiring a passcode to shut the phone down would inhibit that, or make it impossible if the person holding the phone doesn't know it.

And then there's hard reset. Is a password going to be required for that too? And if so, what if the authentication portion of the OS is causing the hang requiring the reset int he first place? Then you're just plain screwed until he battery runs down, and if it's fully charged, that could take the better part of a day or more.

Common sense tells me that people at Apple have already considered the possibilities here, and have considered the scenarios, and decided that the current way things are done are the best balance, for now.

 

[crashoverride77]

The thing is, common sense isn't so common.

For starters, I can think of a number of situations (some maybe life or death) where a quick shutdown of a phone would be *required*, and requiring a passcode to shut the phone down would inhibit that, or make it impossible if the person holding the phone doesn't know it.

And then there's hard reset. Is a password going to be required for that too? And if so, what if the authentication portion of the OS is causing the hang requiring the reset int he first place? Then you're just plain screwed until he battery runs down, and if it's fully charged, that could take the better part of a day or more.

Common sense tells me that people at Apple have already considered the possibilities here, and have considered the scenarios, and decided that the current way things are done are the best balance, for now.

We are talking about find my iPhone which is a feature that is used when you loose your phone or it gets STOLEN. Your whole comment is not relevant to this specific thread at all. Your life or death point , what has that to so with anything?
It is clearly common sense that if a phone gets stolen and you use apples tracking software that it would be useful to make life as hard as possible for the thief to turn of the tracking feature. I'm sure in ios 6 loads of people said it was stupid that people could just format the phone and turn of tracking, which now in ios 7 requires passcode and Apple ID and is called activation lock.

 

[charlituna]

But even if I do this they could still power off the phone and use control centre. Right?

You can select no access on the lock screen for control center.

As for powering off. A determined thief will yank the SIM card or even the battery. So I putting a passcode on that slider is rather moot.

Man there should be a department at apple called "common sense" and I'd love to run it using your people's suggestions. I have about 5 things that would happen right away of course

What you see as common sense etc isn't really. Common sense would say that if you are positioning something as a theft deterrent there can't be any way around it. However, this scenario of a passcode to shut off a phone to prevent it from being stolen or hacked just doesn't play out. There are half a dozen ways that someone could get around such measures. And this is after your phone is already in someone else's hands. What's to stop them from selling it for parts, on eBay etc. Nothing. So what that they can't shut it off, eventually the battery will die on it's own. Wrap it in some tin foil to screw with the reception and wait it out.

 

[Mlrollin91]

We are talking about find my iPhone which is a feature that is used when you loose your phone or it gets STOLEN. Your whole comment is not relevant to this specific thread at all. Your life or death point , what has that to so with anything?
It is clearly common sense that if a phone gets stolen and you use apples tracking software that it would be useful to make life as hard as possible for the thief to turn of the tracking feature. I'm sure in ios 6 loads of people said it was stupid that people could just format the phone and turn of tracking, which now in ios 7 requires passcode and Apple ID and is called activation lock.

Everything scaredpoet said is completely relevant to your original post. You said that there should be a pass code required to turn off the phone and scaredpoet gave a few examples of how that would not be as easy or as possible as you think.

If a pass code is required to turn off or reset the device and there is a glitch with the authentication process the device could become virtually useless for the user. Additionally, there is the hard reset option incase of a complete software failure on the device, therefore the keyboard would be unresponsive and there would be no way to enter the pass code to authenticate the hard reset. Again, the device would be useless for the user. There are plenty of ways to get around a pass code to turn off the device, as mentioned before, just allowing the battery to die would be sufficient.

 

[crashoverride77]

Everything scaredpoet said is completely relevant to your original post. You said that there should be a pass code required to turn off the phone and scaredpoet gave a few examples of how that would not be as easy or as possible as you think.

If a pass code is required to turn off or reset the device and there is a glitch with the authentication process the device could become virtually useless for the user. Additionally, there is the hard reset option incase of a complete software failure on the device, therefore the keyboard would be unresponsive and there would be no way to enter the pass code to authenticate the hard reset. Again, the device would be useless for the user. There are plenty of ways to get around a pass code to turn off the device, as mentioned before, just allowing the battery to die would be sufficient.

What are you guys talking about? You already have to authenticate a hard reset via passcode and Apple ID, it's called activation lock. And if you mean hard reset by holding home and power button, that should also be blocked if you use find my ihpone.
The passcode to turn of the phone is when find my iPhone is used, not at daily use. Just allowing the battery to die takes a few hours not a few seconds. And what are you talking about with freezing issues, I'm talking about find my ihpone and how to improve it, did you guys miss that.
Please enlighten me to your life or death situation, wtf?
So again both your comments are not applicable to this thread and thus useless.

 

[seble]

peopel mention the power and home button trick but i thought that restarted the phone, so it would surely switch back on? Or am I wrong and does it turn it off as well?

 

[scaredpoet]

We are talking about find my iPhone which is a feature that is used when you loose your phone or it gets STOLEN.

i know what we're talking about, and my point stands.

Your whole comment is not relevant to this specific thread at all. Your life or death point , what has that to so with anything?

It has a lot to do with what we're discussing. Where there's theft there's crime. I can think of a number of instances where life or property might be at risk if the location of an indiviudal is revealed because a phone started ringing.

Find my iPhone, by the way, is also used when a phone is LOST, and an innocent individual finds the phone and may have reason to temporarily shut it off.

What if the owner has left their iPhone on a plane, discovered it missing, and activates passcode-to-power off? Now you have a phone sitting on a plane with the potential to cause interference mid-flight, with no way to shut it off.


Oh, by the way: you completely sidestepped my other point: How you get past the hard reset, which is a required feature and MUST override all software, including Find My iPhone?

 

[iBighouse]

Read a really interesting post today on a website that suggested Apple should have a "Good Samaritan" functionality to allow the finder of a lost phone to send a message or email to the lost phone user...accessed via the home screen after a user reports it as lost.

 

[C DM]

There's a reason why in computing or even electric devices in general password protecting shutting down or resetting isn't something that is normally offered pretty much anywhere. It's a fairly common and basic standard essentially not to do that with electronic devices (while it's certainly not when it comes to accessing them once they are powered on).

 

[crashoverride77]

i know what we're talking about, and my point stands.



It has a lot to do with what we're discussing. Where there's theft there's crime. I can think of a number of instances where life or property might be at risk if the location of an indiviudal is revealed because a phone started ringing.

Find my iPhone, by the way, is also used when a phone is LOST, and an innocent individual finds the phone and may have reason to temporarily shut it off.

What if the owner has left their iPhone on a plane, discovered it missing, and activates passcode-to-power off? Now you have a phone sitting on a plane with the potential to cause interference mid-flight, with no way to shut it off.



Oh, by the way: you completely sidestepped my other point: How you get past the hard reset, which is a required feature and MUST override all software, including Find My iPhone?

I don't know how to block a hard reset, it was a suggestion.
Also by your logic why have activation lock there might be situations where a format is required in life or death situations. It's a moot point. If I loose my phone I want to be sure that it is very difficult to turn of find my iPhone. Also if someone innocent find my phone than he would clearly not turn it off but hand it back, oh wait they don't. They turn of the phone and boom no tracking. Also in ios8 they now save the last location if battery runs low. That's the point of this thread so again your very unrealistic example of life and death is useless. Clearly blocking someone from shutting of the phone when in lost mode seems like a decent idea. Also a hard reset doesn't override anything, are You listening to what u saying, basically there should always be a feature that can deactivate anything so might as well don't use find my iPhone or other security features. If phone is in lost mode than essentially it should be frozen and not usable....

 

[scaredpoet]

I don't know how to block a hard reset, it was a suggestion.

Then I guess Apple won't be hiring you and your common sense wisdom anytime soon. If hard reset is to be preserved as a way to recover from a software lockup, your suggested feature is rendered useless with a couple of button presses.

Also by your logic why have activation lock there might be situations where a format is required in life or death situations.

I'm sure there are such life and death situations. Fortunately, remote wipe is not affected by Activation Lock. You really should study how all of the features of Find My iPhone works before you make untrue statements like this.

If I loose my phone I want to be sure that it is very difficult to turn of find my iPhone.

If someone loses their iPhone, Activation Lock is already sufficient to make it extremely hard for thieves to do anything useful.

Also if someone innocent find my phone than he would clearly not turn it off but hand it back, oh wait they don't.

Actually, I've found that it's a mix. Some will make an effort to find the owner, others will turn it over to a lost and found, which will turn off the phone by default (they don't want to deal with dozens of lost, ringing phones). Still others will find an Apple Store, which will often pretty much sit on the phone too, and not do anything with it other than shut it off.

Also in ios8 they now save the last location if battery runs low.

And yet, your password-to-turn-off feature didn't make the cut.

That's the point of this thread so again your very unrealistic example of life and death is useless.

Dissenting opinions are never useless. On the other hand, you have yet to provide a single reason for why my point is "useless." You just keep calling it that and hoping someone that just makes it true. Sorry, that's not the way discussions work.

And I'm still waiting for an apology, for falsely accusing me of being a professional iPhone thief. Since none appears to be forthcoming, I guess I'll just report the post to the mods.

 

[Zxxv]

what is this they don't hand the iPhone back they turn it off ********?

everyone in this topic upon finding an iPhone would hand the iPhone in and/or contact the owner. anyone else is just a jerk and there are more of us than them