iPhone stolen, still on and syncing with google account, any way to recover?

[bcnstony]

Hello All

My friend had her iPhone stolen from her during, of all times, her birthday party at her house. We're trying to recover it, and I'm wondering what I can do. It's tough enough on her suspecting one of the invitees AND loosing a phone.

We don't have Mobile Me or any other tracking service, so that's out.

It's on the O2 network in the UK, and as of now they are telling us to call back customer service on Monday, though I don't think they will help us much.

What we may have going for us is that the iphone is setup to sync with her google account for her calendars. I just checked, and the stolen phone is still turned on and syncing with the google account.

The google page accessible from her loaner iphone that shows both iphones trying to sync looks just like this:
http://jkontherun.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/google-sync.jpg

Is there any way to see what IP address the iphone is using to sync with google's servers?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Matthew Yohe]

The bottom of gmail has an option that shows recent IP activity.

Did you call the phone?

 

[Applejuiced]

Not much u can do unless they answer your calls and want to return it.

 

[bcnstony]

Thanks, but sadly they aren't on gmail's web interface, and I don't think they would be able to, as the don't know her password.

All I have is the iPhone background Syncing with Google Calendar through the Calendar/Exchange connector on the iPhone

(this setting: http://www.knowliz.com/2009/02/how-to-sync-multiple-calendars-with.html)

And yes, we've called it - about a hundred times!

cheers

 

[Matthew Yohe]

Tried texting it?

Maybe you can do this: Create a contact for your cell phone in your friend's gmail named "Important Message", wait a bit for that address entry to sync with the phone's address book, and then send a text message from your phone saying something like "Location Tracking" And in the message say something about Mobile Me tracking it .

I dunno, it sounds like the only thing you can do is go the social engineering route and get them to text you back, or call you or something.

Also, can your carrier look at recent calls made out? That could be helpful.

 

[bcnstony]

Hmmm..unfortunately contacts do not sync, just calendar.

But I like your idea of social engineering. We could send a text saying that the real owner has won something and that they should stop in to pick it up...and then we go Tanya Harding on their *ss!

The challenge there is that we've already contacted O2 and told them it's stolen, and they have locked the account so the person can't make calls. I'm guessing they can't receive calls/sms soon (lock down takes 12-24 hours to kick in).

Our best hope is to find the IP address from google somehow and hope that the IP address can be traced to a home ADSL or something.

Tried texting it?

Maybe you can do this: Create a contact for your cell phone in your friend's gmail named "Important Message", wait a bit for that address entry to sync with the phone's address book, and then send a text message from your phone saying something like "Location Tracking" And in the message say something about Mobile Me tracking it .

I dunno, it sounds like the only thing you can do is go the social engineering route and get them to text you back, or call you or something.

Also, can your carrier look at recent calls made out? That could be helpful.

 

[Intell]

I'm not sure how compatible the iPhone calendar app and Google calendar are, but try making a new event that will go off soon and give it an alarm. You can make the event and location be some kind off message.