Find My Mac Goes Live For Developers

[MacRumors]

Find My Mac has gone live for developers beta testing Apple's iCloud service. Find My Mac was officially added to Lion in Developer Preview 4, released after WWDC in June, though evidence of the feature had leaked in prior releases.

Find My Mac is very similar to Find My iPhone, only because the Mac has no GPS functionality, it seems likely the feature relies solely on nearby Wi-Fi networks to determine the computer's location.




Once it finds the lost Mac, users can send a message, remotely lock the screen, or even wipe out the entire drive. Find My Mac may launch this fall with the general release of iCloud.

Article Link: Find My Mac Goes Live For Developers

 

[crisss1205]

It has been working with the iOS app for a while, now just added to the site.

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

Find my Mac? Cool. LOL. Guess everyone should do a secure 3 write when selling their macs now.

 

[Erwin-Br]

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

*Usually when drunk.

 

[Certinfy]

At this rate in a few years we're also going to have "find my house"

 

[MarkMS]

Find my Mac? Cool. LOL. Guess everyone should do a secure 3 write when selling their macs now.

Everyone should always do a 1-pass (Zero data) erase. I do a 7-pass anytime I sell a computer and a 1-pass when I buy it a pre-owned machine.

But seriously, this will be even better if 3G/4G/LTE is added to future MacBook Airs or Pros. I rarely take my MBP out of the house, but I can see this being helpful for students and those who are always on the move.

 

[Doctor Q]

I wonder how easy it is to defeat a remotely locked Mac, such as putting it in target disk mode. Until I know more about how it works I wouldn't consider that a way to protect my data on a lost Mac. I'd wipe out the entire drive instead.

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

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

*Usually when drunk.

Yeah I hear people misplace those all the time. Slippery suckers.

 

[FrizzleFryBen]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

I'll finally feel comfortable with all my employees' MBAs and MBPs! I was just kicking around the idea of standard issue Airs for everybody. I'm pumped!

 

[MultiMediaWill]

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

 

[ECUpirate44]

But seriously, this will be even better if 3G/4G/LTE is added to future MacBook Airs or Pros. I rarely take my MBP out of the house, but I can see this being helpful for students and those who are always on the move.

Another monthly data plan? No thanks. I get boned enough for my iPhone data as is.

 

[jyoung96]

I wonder how easy it is to defeat a remotely locked Mac, such as putting it in target disk mode. Until I know more about how it works I wouldn't consider that a way to protect my data on a lost Mac. I'd wipe out the entire drive instead.

when you boot up, it goes straight to the passcode screen, i tried booting off disks, target disk mode, it won't accept it.

 

[cshearer]

That's pretty nifty. Now they just need a "Find My Guitar Pick."

Musicians holla back.

 

[cshearer]

Another monthly data plan? No thanks. I get boned enough for my iPhone data as is.

You have Verizon. You didn't get grandfathered unlimited data?

 

[FrizzleFryBen]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

Ha! Not a musician...but I'm in desperate need of "find my torque wrench". The intake manifold ain't putting itself back on.

 

[ECUpirate44]

You have Verizon. You didn't get grandfathered unlimited data?

Image

No I did, but carriers in the US in general are incredibly overpriced.

 

[hobo.hopkins]

This sounds like a great feature, especially for college students who may have MacBooks that could be stolen quite easily. At least locating the computer could result in getting it back.

 

[mazz0]

Well that's a bit daft. I mean you can see why they did it from a technical standpoint, but it makes the user choose between stopping a thief from accessing the Mac and knowing where they've taken it.

 

[sissified84]

Restart to Safari?

So is the "restart to safari" working now as well?

 

[pspwesty]

to late for me

Could have used this two weeks ago when my door was kicked in and my Macbook decided to walk off along w/ a other electronics.

 

[jackrv]

It's not perfect. I wonder how it is tied to the service? Serial Number would be funny. Sell your Mac and constantly annoy the buyer by locking it.

Joking aside, if it's software based, it is still better than nothing. A tech-savvy thief may know to disable Airport immediately, but at least it is still one small extra chance of recovery.

 

[wordoflife]

I can't wait for this to be released to the public. I like this idea a lot.

 

[goobot]

It's not perfect. I wonder how it is tied to the service? Serial Number would be funny. Sell your Mac and constantly annoy the buyer by locking it.

Joking aside, if it's software based, it is still better than nothing. A tech-savvy thief may know to disable Airport immediately, but at least it is still one small extra chance of recovery.

Pretty sure it is tied to your apple id.

 

[Starship77]

That's pretty nifty. Now they just need a "Find My Guitar Pick."

Musicians holla back.

Impossible! It's a proven fact that Guitar Picks go into a completely different dimension as soon as they hit the stage ground. It's like a Guitar Pick Portal or something...

 

[Doctor Q]

Could have used this two weeks ago when my door was kicked in and my Macbook decided to walk off along w/ a other electronics.

Sorry to hear it.

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