"Find my iPhone"

[iRabbit]

Two questions...

Am I missing something or shouldn't the "Find my iPhone" feature be password protected? It seems to me if a thief steels my iPhone, the first thing he'll do is turn "Find my iPhone" off.

And no, password protecting the whole phone isn't the solution.

Am I missing something here?

Second...

My daughter inherited by "old" iPhone. She's a teenager. The "Find my iPhone" feature could prove handy as a parent. Is there a way to set up that feature to use my MobileMe account, but have her MobileMe account used for email, contacts, calendars?

Thanks!

 

[The General]

Find My iPhone is not for finding your daughter's iPhone. If it were, it'd be called "Find My Daughter's iPhone."

You should use Loopt or something similar if you want to know where your daughter is. If you can't trust her to go somewhere without secret tracking, then you have a bigger problem than Find My iPhone not being password protected.

If you want a to make it so a potential thief can't disable it, turn on a passcode lock. Then the thief can't even use your iPhone, nor turn off Find My iPhone.

 

[iphone3gss]

I'm not sure why people try to give parenting/relationship advice when someone asks a technical question here.

Anyways, you can try setting up the me account on her phone too and just toggle email/contacts/calendar to Off. I haven't tried this. Also, you can get a family account and get her an account (whether she uses it or not). I think you get 5 accounts total on the family plan.

 

[macfanboy]

more likely than a thief getting your phone, couldn't your daughter find out you have 'find my iphone' installed and turn it off?

 

[jav6454]

Two questions...

Am I missing something or shouldn't the "Find my iPhone" feature be password protected? It seems to me if a thief steels my iPhone, the first thing he'll do is turn "Find my iPhone" off.

And no, password protecting the whole phone isn't the solution.

Am I missing something here?

Yes, that's something 3.1 should cover. The whole password for turning On/Off "Find my iPhone". I hope Apple addresses this issue.

Second...

My daughter inherited by "old" iPhone. She's a teenager. The "Find my iPhone" feature could prove handy as a parent. Is there a way to set up that feature to use my MobileMe account, but have her MobileMe account used for email, contacts, calendars?

Thanks!

I don't know of this one, but I think you can't.

 

[iRabbit]

Find My iPhone is not for finding your daughter's iPhone. If it were, it'd be called "Find My Daughter's iPhone."

You should use Loopt or something similar if you want to know where your daughter is. If you can't trust her to go somewhere without secret tracking, then you have a bigger problem than Find My iPhone not being password protected.

If you want a to make it so a potential thief can't disable it, turn on a passcode lock. Then the thief can't even use your iPhone, nor turn off Find My iPhone.

First of all, guess who pays for my teen's iPhone? Me. Guess who's iPhone that makes it? Mine.

Second, as a parent, my #1 job is keeping my daughter safe. If Find My iPhone can help me do that, all the better.

Third, I said NOTHING about secret tracking. Do you KNOW how irresponsible and even stupid teenagers can be? Can I tell you how many times my teen has left things behind at school or a friends but was convinced she had brought them home? In case you didn't notice, the iPhone is a bit expensive so protecting my investment is within my right - especially since *I paid for it*.

Fourth, I trust my daughter, but she has EARNED that trust. It isn't blind trust she gets just for existing. She's a good kid, but like all teenagers she's still learning. Teenagers explore and rebel and stretch their wings as they break away - and a NORMAL part of that process is lying. Period. They ALL do it. It's just like parental controls on her computer that I slowly lifted over time (as she EARNED more trust and privacy). And by the way, I was HONEST with her about exactly that. I would no more let my daughter sit on her computer for 12 straight hours than I would let her watch TV all day... and she's a better kid for it.

All that said, thanks for the information about Loopt. I'll check it out.

Last but not least, I already said the passcode was not the solution. I don't want the whole phone locked. Some of us don't like having to enter a password every time we use the phone. It seems to me, it's pretty obvious that something like "Find My iPhone" should have it's own password - just like parental controls or voice mail.

I'm not sure why people try to give parenting/relationship advice when someone asks a technical question here.

Anyways, you can try setting up the me account on her phone too and just toggle email/contacts/calendar to Off. I haven't tried this. Also, you can get a family account and get her an account (whether she uses it or not). I think you get 5 accounts total on the family plan.

Thanks...
I'll give that a try. She has her own MobileMe now (we used to have the family account, but as she's gotten older she's needed more features).

more likely than a thief getting your phone, couldn't your daughter find out you have 'find my iphone' installed and turn it off?

Yup, she could. But since we've talked about it already she knows why it's on and WANTS it on. Considering she had an iPod stolen last year, she likes that idea (and what teenager wouldn't) of sending a thief a message remotely - LOL! She also understands why it's important for me to have access to it, and that she'd be in trouble if she turned it off. This is *my* iPhone that I give her the privilege to use. When she buys her own, she can do what she wants.

Yes, that's something 3.1 should cover. The whole password for turning On/Off "Find my iPhone". I hope Apple addresses this issue.

Me too!

I don't know of this one, but I think you can't.

I'm going to explore it some more.

Thanks all,

Amy

 

[RumMunkey]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_5_7; en-us) AppleWebKit/530.19.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.2 Safari/530.19)

It's easy.

Set-up YOUR Mobile Me email on her phone. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > and choose YOUR Mobile Me account.

Slide the switches next to "Mail", "Contacts", Calendars", and "Bookmarks" to "OFF".

Slide the switch next to "Find My iPhone" to "ON".

Done. Granted, if she were so inclined, she could re-enable your mail anyime she wanted if she knows where to go on the phone, but as long as Mail is "OFF" under this account, it won't even show up when she runs the Maill app on the phone. Only her emails will show up.

I don't know about the parental controls, maybe there's a way to disable her ability to re-enable YORU mail?

 

[Small White Car]

Am I missing something or shouldn't the "Find my iPhone" feature be password protected? It seems to me if a thief steels my iPhone, the first thing he'll do is turn "Find my iPhone" off.

No, the first thing they'll do is restore the phone and wipe the memory.

So what you're asking for is pointless and won't do a darned thing.

'Find my Phone' is for when you've lost it, not for when it's stolen.

 

[iRabbit]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_5_7; en-us) AppleWebKit/530.19.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.2 Safari/530.19)

It's easy.

Set-up YOUR Mobile Me email on her phone. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > and choose YOUR Mobile Me account.

Slide the switches next to "Mail", "Contacts", Calendars", and "Bookmarks" to "OFF".

Slide the switch next to "Find My iPhone" to "ON".

Done. Granted, if she were so inclined, she could re-enable your mail anyime she wanted if she knows where to go on the phone, but as long as Mail is "OFF" under this account, it won't even show up when she runs the Maill app on the phone. Only her emails will show up.

I don't know about the parental controls, maybe there's a way to disable her ability to re-enable YORU mail?

Thanks... I'll try that later when she gets home. I honestly don't care if she gets my email because there's nothing in there she couldn't see anyway... and she gave me access to her email long ago (which I just remembered 5 minutes ago, so now I can "find her iphone" if I need to through her account).

In theory, your method should work fine, so I'll give it a go later today.

 

[RumMunkey]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_5_7; en-us) AppleWebKit/530.19.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.2 Safari/530.19)

Well, she won't see your mail unless she goes into Prefs and turns the "Mail" slider back to "ON". As long it's set at "OFF", it will be seamless and she won't get your mail.

Also, just so you know, it's not a theory. I do this with my wife's phone; only I need her to sync addressbook and calendars, so I left those on in my case. It works.

 

[iRabbit]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_5_7; en-us) AppleWebKit/530.19.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.2 Safari/530.19)

Well, she won't see your mail unless she goes into Prefs and turns the "Mail" slider back to "ON". As long it's set at "OFF", it will be seamless and she won't get your mail.

Also, just so you know, it's not a theory. I do this with my wife's phone; only I need her to sync addressbook and calendars, so I left those on in my case. It works.

Awesome RM, thanks! I'd rather not log into her MobileMe account if I don't have to... nice to have it all on my own MM. Will set it up later today.

 

[The General]

Third, I said NOTHING about secret tracking. Do you KNOW how irresponsible and even stupid teenagers can be? Can I tell you how many times my teen has left things behind at school or a friends but was convinced she had brought them home? In case you didn't notice, the iPhone is a bit expensive so protecting my investment is within my right - especially since *I paid for it*.

You say you want Find My iPhone turned ON on your daughters iPhone, with a passcode that prevents her from turning it off. You want to be able to track her without her knowing and prevent her from turning it off.

Sounds like secret tracking to me.

Fourth, I trust my daughter, but she has EARNED that trust. It isn't blind trust she gets just for existing. She's a good kid, but like all teenagers she's still learning. Teenagers explore and rebel and stretch their wings as they break away - and a NORMAL part of that process is lying. Period. They ALL do it. It's just like parental controls on her computer that I slowly lifted over time (as she EARNED more trust and privacy). And by the way, I was HONEST with her about exactly that. I would no more let my daughter sit on her computer for 12 straight hours than I would let her watch TV all day... and she's a better kid for it.

If you really trust your daughter, then you can turn on Find My iPhone and not worry about there not being a password to disable it. Problem solved.

 

[AppleFan360]

Last but not least, I already said the passcode was not the solution. I don't want the whole phone locked. Some of us don't like having to enter a password every time we use the phone.

Earlier you stated that you want to protect your investment. So why don't you want to protect your data? If you leave your phone unlocked a thief can pretty much do what he/she wants with everything on your phone. Is entering a passcode such a small price to pay? There is no way in hell I would ever leave my phone unlocked. Way too much information to lose to a scumbag.