Find My App: Everything to Know

[QquegChristian]

The rumor about having a Tile-like device that can alert you if it gets too far from the phone... I’ve had the Apple Watch since gen0 and always wondered why I can’t have my watch ding if it loses connection to my phone?

I’ve looked down at my watch, seen the red phone icon and realized I left the phone in the car, etc, but thankfully never actually left it somewhere in public. But why can’t the watch just ding as soon as connection is lost?! Is this really not a setting? It would stop phones from getting lost as soon as you walk away from them.

 

[MisterSavage]

What if you had just temporarily turned off Bluetooth on your iPhone. And then it was stolen / lost a few minutes later? Would this feature still work? Anyway to remotely force BlueTooth back on?

I think if you turn off bluetooth via control panel it will switch back on automatically the next day.

 

[Caliber26]

I downgraded from beta of iOS 13, but still have a question about Find My app.
How do I log in with another Apple ID in there? For example, a friend lost his iPhone, and we have no laptop nearby, he doesn't have any other Apple devices handy.
On iOS 12 I can just simply sign out of my account and then sign in with another one. How do you perform this now? Because I didnt find that option.

I had the same concern as you and it turns out it’s even simpler now. All you gotta do is open Safari and go to iCloud.com. It’ll prompt you to log in with your Apple ID and it automatically takes you to the Find My iPhone page.
[doublepost=1562389530][/doublepost]

That “My phone is lost” feature is great. At least when there’s people around with even a little moral compass. Lost mine at a casino in Vegas. Sin City, right? Morals be dammed! Yet, someone dropped it off at the help desk when they saw the alert. NEAT.

Ha! This exactly same thing happened to me at The Mirage. I left my phone in the bathroom in the casino floor and it wasn’t until about an hour or so later that I realized I didn’t have my phone on me. I went into panic mode and looked all over the slots we’d been sitting at. Finally asked a security guard. Took me to some back room and asked me to describe the case and asked if I could unlock it with the passcode. I could have kissed that man on the mouth right then and there!
[doublepost=1562389891][/doublepost]

The rumor about having a Tile-like device that can alert you if it gets too far from the phone... I’ve had the Apple Watch since gen0 and always wondered why I can’t have my watch ding if it loses connection to my phone?

I’ve looked down at my watch, seen the red phone icon and realized I left the phone in the car, etc, but thankfully never actually left it somewhere in public. But why can’t the watch just ding as soon as connection is lost?! Is this really not a setting? It would stop phones from getting lost as soon as you walk away from them.

That’s my number one gripe about the Apple Watch. As you can see in my story above, I lost my phone in a casino. The only reason I even realized my phone wasn’t near me was because I noticed the red icon on my watch a long time after I’d been separated from my iPhone. If only the stupid watch would have given me a haptic notification the instant that red icon came on, I would have found my phone a lot sooner.

This is such an easy fix and I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what the hell Apple is waiting on.

 

[TrulsZK]

Ready to replace all of my Tiles with the hopefully new Apple Tag.
Tile’s community find is useless, having to wait weeks for another Tile user to pass the device.
With Apple’s system someone will probably pass the device within minutes.
[doublepost=1562406343][/doublepost]

I’m on the 13 beta on my XR and these are my Find My iPhone options. Should address your concerns.

This will disable location tracking for your iPhone i.e. another iPhone cannot update your location.
It does not say anything about the other way around, your iPhone updating the location of another iPhone.

You probably need to disable Location Services to prevent updating the location of another iPhone

 

[matrix07]

What if you had just temporarily turned off Bluetooth on your iPhone. And then it was stolen / lost a few minutes later? Would this feature still work? Anyway to remotely force BlueTooth back on?

I believe the phone will emit Bluetooth intermittently, even when the phone turned off, if you set it to Lost Mode. Don’t quote me though. Can’t remember where I’d read it.

 

[now i see it]

this technology won't improve the chances of someone returning a found/lost iPhone to you. That can simply be done by putting your contact info on your Medical ID that anyone (who found your phone) can access on the lock screen... and contact you.
If they're honest, they'll contact you. If not, sell it for parts. The Find My app can't teach morals.

If the phone is lost on a hiking trail or somewhere where nobody goes, Find My can't help you.

The only two circumstances where this might be useful is when misplacing the iPhone in your home (like losing your keys) and if accidentally leaving or losing your iPhone when you're away at a location that's frequented by a constant stream of iPhone users running iOS 13 - AND the phone is never spotted by an honest person.

Probably the number one usage this Find My app will get is reassuring people that have misplaced their iPhone that it is still nearby in another room or vehicle.... so they can search for it, allaying their fears that they lost it when away from home.

 

[thesimpledrummer]

I’m at the pub and scanned the article. But hang on... if you can turn off Bluetooth to defeat this, then what is the point?

Excellent point, I’ve been wondering this as well. But if you think about it, if an iPhone is locked and Bluetooth is on by default, the only thing a potential thief would be able to do is access control center to turn off “new incoming connections” for Bluetooth and WiFi. Cleverly, this won’t completely turn off the antenna and so Bluetooth will still be active for apple-related features like airdrop, Apple Watch, etc. Hopefully this means the public key is still broadcasted and only someone with the passcode can deactivate the feature.

 

[Justanotherfanboy]

I downgraded from beta of iOS 13, but still have a question about Find My app.
How do I log in with another Apple ID in there? For example, a friend lost his iPhone, and we have no laptop nearby, he doesn't have any other Apple devices handy.
On iOS 12 I can just simply sign out of my account and then sign in with another one. How do you perform this now? Because I didnt find that option.

Nobody in this “for instance” is using 2 factor authentication??
The scenario you describe seems weird to me...
I don’t believe you can do that currently, if you’re using 2 factor authentication.

 

[IIGS User]

Siri, find my Mac Book Pro.

“This is what I found on the web for Bluetooth keyboards and fire extinguishers, take a look”...

 

[heov]

I’m on the 13 beta on my XR and these are my Find My iPhone options. Should address your concerns.

Hmm, thanks for that. But if I turn off the middle option, that means I cant find my phone while it's offline, but does that also mean my phone won't be used by other phones to pin their location? I presume if you don't want to have your phone used as part of the relay, you also can't use others, which is a fair compromise.

 

[Shirasaki]

Feels kinda disappointed yet expected at the same time: it won’t work miracles, and certainly won’t help finding a device that is stolen unless the incident is noticed the moment it happens.
I was kinda hoping this feature would allow user to find his lost device even when the device is powered off but based on the article, that is not the case.

This is awesome! Will it work if the device is turn off? Is that possible?

If Apple releases some kind of Tile like item I will buy them all!! I’m sick of having my things stolen; bicycles, baby strollers!

It is entirely possible, given smartphone never truly turn itself off nowadays, but Apple will likely reserve this part to government only to prevent “misuse”, I think.

One, a thief might not know how to defeat it, and more importantly, two, for when a device is lost, not stolen, and thus nobody is trying to defeat anything.

Don’t underestimate those thieves. They instantly know what they should do as soon as they get your device and run away. If the device is miles away from where you are, the chance of finding it is already extremely slim.

What if you had just temporarily turned off Bluetooth on your iPhone. And then it was stolen / lost a few minutes later? Would this feature still work? Anyway to remotely force BlueTooth back on?

I don’t think so. And if Bluetooth is turned off from settings app, this feature won’t work.

 

[skys15]

Sure wish it had a section for family’s devices, maybe there is and I missed it.

 

[sergekills]

You can't.
You need the Private Key that is stored locally in your devices, to unlock the Public Key in the Apple servers.

That sucks!
[doublepost=1562517423][/doublepost]

I had the same concern as you and it turns out it’s even simpler now. All you gotta do is open Safari and go to iCloud.com. It’ll prompt you to log in with your Apple ID and it automatically takes you to the Find My iPhone page.

Will check that later. Thank you!

 

[Crowbot]

I was kinda hoping this feature would allow user to find his lost device even when the device is powered off but based on the article, that is not the case.

It is entirely possible, given smartphone never truly turn itself off nowadays, but Apple will likely reserve this part to government only to prevent “misuse”, I think.

If you power off the phone (hold power for some time and swipe) it's off. No radios are on.

And if it works like they say, Apple couldn't help the Gov't if they wanted to. They wouldn't have the decryption key.

 

[Mactendo]

I’m at the pub and scanned the article. But hang on... if you can turn off Bluetooth to defeat this, then what is the point?

As someone said above if Bluetooth is turned off from control center then it’s not actually turned off, so tracking will work. The only way to turn off Bluetooth is to turn off the phone. And for that reason we probably need an option when someone can power off iPhone only if it’s ‘unlocked’ i.e. it recognizes you via Face ID as the owner. Then nobody but you will be able to do it.

Seems to be a solution, so sending a feature request to Apple might help.

This is such an easy fix and I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what the hell Apple is waiting on.

You can try to submit a feature request to Apple.

 

[MisterSavage]

As someone said above if Bluetooth is turned off from control center then it’s not actually turned off, so tracking will work. The only way to turn off Bluetooth is to turn off the phone. And for that reason we probably need an option when someone can power off iPhone only if it’s ‘unlocked’ i.e. it recognizes you via Face ID as the owner. Then nobody but you will be able to do it.

I think Bluetooth is temporarily turned off if you do it with control center but it will stay off if you turn it off via the settings app.

 

[Mactendo]

I think Bluetooth is temporarily turned off if you do it with control center but it will stay off if you turn it off via the settings app.

If you turn it off in Settings then yes, it’s turned off and tracking should not work. But in the control center Bluetooth can’t be actually turned off, it’s a known ‘feature’. It disconnects from networks but keeps some background activity like geolocation services.

This is the case in control center:

Cleverly, this won’t completely turn off the antenna and so Bluetooth will still be active for apple-related features like airdrop, Apple Watch, etc. Hopefully this means the public key is still broadcasted and only someone with the passcode can deactivate the feature.

 

[Shirasaki]

If you power off the phone (hold power for some time and swipe) it's off. No radios are on.

And if it works like they say, Apple couldn't help the Gov't if they wanted to. They wouldn't have the decryption key.

The thing is, you never know if the radio is on or off. The device would enter a deep sleep state with power provided by the battery. Unless independent organisation shows us “radio is truly off” when device is turned off, I cannot assume this.
On the other hand, when device is off, this feature would not work. So yeah, the radio is “off” when device is turned off.

 

[Crowbot]

The thing is, you never know if the radio is on or off. The device would enter a deep sleep state with power provided by the battery. Unless independent organisation shows us “radio is truly off” when device is turned off, I cannot assume this.
On the other hand, when device is off, this feature would not work. So yeah, the radio is “off” when device is turned off.

I hear you. It's theoretically possible but I'm pretty sure that Apple wouldn't bother to be that devious. It's not "dead" when it's off. There's still some power supply circuitry running to the switch, and the clock. But the circuitry necessary to make a connection would be unpowered.

 

[MisterSavage]

If you turn it off in Settings then yes, it’s turned off and tracking should not work. But in the control center Bluetooth can’t be actually turned off, it’s a known ‘feature’. It disconnects from networks but keeps some background activity like geolocation services.

This is the case in control center:

It would crack me up if a thief turned it off in control center not knowing it would bounce back on the next day.

 

[Solomani]

That sounds worrisome -- "receiving notifications about their location". Like parents keeping track of their kids' whereabouts? What about children's autonomy?
Haven't Apple seen Black Mirror?

I'm not sure if you've heard, but there are already many apps that are made to keep track of…. your girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse, partner, etc. They were made with the intention of spying on the significant other. Of course, the app location tracking has to be voluntarily enabled on the target device, and if your SO "turns it off", then you are notified that they have done so, which then leads to suspicion as to why they turned themselves off from your radar. Are they cheating on you? Is he seeing the mistress that you long suspected, etc?

Parents tracking minors is a whole different can of worms. In most countries, the parents are given wide control/jurisdiction over their children. The only times the government intervenes is when the parents have demonstrated themselves to be abusive or neglectful. In summary, minors are not considered "full citizens with full rights" until they have reached adult age. For example…. they can't legally drive until a certain age. They cannot vote until a certain age. They cannot drink or purchase alcohol until a certain age. They cannot join the military until a certain age. They cannot legally marry until a certain age. They cannot do this and this and that until a certain age. See? They are not considered full citizens (with full rights) until they reach the age of adulthood.

 

[chucker23n1]

That sounds worrisome -- "receiving notifications about their location". Like parents keeping track of their kids' whereabouts? What about children's autonomy?
Haven't Apple seen Black Mirror?

I hope we'll eventually see some legislation that enforces privacy/autonomy for children at a certain age.

(As for what that age would be, I'm sure that's quite controversial.)

 

[steve62388]

I hope we'll eventually see some legislation that enforces privacy/autonomy for children at a certain age.

(As for what that age would be, I'm sure that's quite controversial.)

Excellent news. We already do. It’s called the age of majority.

 

[Mercifull]

In iOS 14: "Find My Money."

Found

 

[5105973]

Found

Mmmm...donut....