How about a remote Kill Switch for iPhone owners?

[Trajectory]

Just as Apple can remove a rogue app on everyone's iPhone, I think Apple should allow iPhone owners the ability to remotely "kill" their data should it be lost or stolen. iTunes can have an option called "Lost/Stolen iPhone" where you can choose to have some or all data automatically wiped from your iPhone the next time it is turned on. It can also allow you to display an "If Found..." message on the phone instead of the Home screen.

Not sure how feasible this would be technically, but, it would sure limit the amount of damage someone can do with a lost or stolen iPhone.

 

[Nicod3mus]

Currently you cannot run an app in the background but with the introduction of the push service from Apple coming pretty soon you could push messages out if the phone were lost or stolen.

 

[iGuardian]

I believe this may already be a feature... Something similar was shown during the iPhone for Enterprise keynote.

 

[Diseal3]

Just as Apple can remove a rogue app on everyone's iPhone, I think Apple should allow iPhone owners the ability to remotely "kill" their data should it be lost or stolen. iTunes can have an option called "Lost/Stolen iPhone" where you can choose to have some or all data automatically wiped from your iPhone the next time it is turned on. It can also allow you to display an "If Found..." message on the phone instead of the Home screen.

Not sure how feasible this would be technically, but, it would sure limit the amount of damage someone can do with a lost or stolen iPhone.

Although that would be a good idea for consumer user of the Iphone the wipe feature of which you speak of is already avaliable to user's using a exchange server with there iphone (Myself included.) Most likley if apple is going to implement such a feature it's going to be part of the mobileme service in addition to exchange user's.

-Diseal3

 

[Trajectory]

Where does this feature exist? I haven't been able to find it.

To clarify, I'd like the ability to remotely wipe all data from the phone, including contacts, emails, bookmarks, phone call history, visual voicemails, photos, SMS messages, etc. But, if I get the phone back, I can just synch it with iTunes and restore everything.

Something like that would be awesome!

 

[TEG]

Apple has a Remote Wipe feature available to Enterprises, which can include specially setup phones and those connected to an Exchange Server. I would suspect that something like this would be included in iTunes 8.0 and firmware 2.1 for regular users.

TEG