Quick Find my iPhone question

[jhearty99]

My friends iphone was stolen and he has find my iphone turned on everything. Whoever took it has turned it off but they have turned it on a few times so he is holding out hopes he could track it, though probably wont be able to.

Anyway, he obviously wants to get a replacement phone in the meantime. If he were to go to Verizon and have another iPhone activated with the same number, does anyone know if he will still be able to track the old phone?

 

[Newtons Apple]

Verizon would have to deactivate the stolen phone which you should do anyway. No way to activate the same number on two phones.

Find My Phone does not work off the phone number from what I understand, so Find My Phone would still work.

 

[jhearty99]

Yea they would obviously deactivate the stolen one which im pretty sure would stop the phone from being tracked unless it miraculously connected to wifi somewhere. Just want to confirm that

 

[Newtons Apple]

Yea they would obviously deactivate the stolen one which im pretty sure would stop the phone from being tracked unless it miraculously connected to wifi somewhere. Just want to confirm that

Verizon should know. Sorry, I do not know for sure. If it were me I would send the comand to erase the phone so if it did get hooked up to WiFi it would erase itself.

Sorry for your friends loss.

 

[aristobrat]

If it connects to Wi-Fi, it should report back in. At least until the thief puts it in DFU mode and restores the phone.

From that point on, there's really no tracking it, but at least you know the phone is essentially unusable (it won't activate unless whoever has it knows your friends Apple ID and password), so they won't be getting that much money for it (assuming they're going to sell it for parts).

 

[rigormortis]

if you want to track the phone keep paying the bill and do not call verizon to tell them to deactivate the sim. keep it going , keep the phone alive, because as long as its turned on , it will report back.

if someone got a hold of your iCloud account then call Verizon i guess

i dunno about this dfu mode as far as activation lock goes. if its locked by a pin code, and someone dfus it, i think its still trackable.

maybe ill test it again later , ill dfu my iPad and see if i can find it


once you give up on ever getting it back, then you go to www.icloud.com and erase the phone from your iCloud. DO NOT REMOVE it from iCloud, and leave your name and number asking for your phone back

then you call verizon and you tell them i need a new phone, please deactivate my sim

one thing i know for sure is if you deactivate the sim card, and its locked by a passcode. its not going to connect to wifi AT ALL to report back to apple, unless it connected to that wifi network at least once before.

its the same argument about iPods and wifi only iPads, it can't connect to free wifi like mcdonalds and statrbucks and click on i agree if its locked by a passcode, when it has no cellular connection.


if you deactivate the sim card in a stolen phone, you are basically given up getting it back quickly

if you have some proof that the sim card has been removed and thrown away, then yeah get a new sim card

FINAL TIP
=======
everyone should turn off control center access from the lock screen so the thief can't put it in airplane mode.

 

[rigormortis]

darn it

darn it
i put my cellular enabled iPad in dfu mode and drove it to the nearby apple store because it was faster internet and i never synced to their demo mac books

and when the dfu was complete it wanted my iCloud password, darn

i was hoping for a lock screen

i put it in lost mode from find my iPhone. the lock mode kept saying it was pending, the cellular enabled iPad wouldn't phone home its location.
but it did put my phone number on the activation lock screen, cool

 

[Applejuiced]

Yea they would obviously deactivate the stolen one which im pretty sure would stop the phone from being tracked unless it miraculously connected to wifi somewhere. Just want to confirm that

Correct.
If you shut off service to it then it will not be able to connect to the internet to transmit back its location information.
You need data for that.
Unless they connect it to wifi but I doubt they will connect to a wifi with a device that they cannot do anything besides use data to track it down with find my iphone
If they restore it they will be stuck on the activation lock screen.
Tell him not to remove it from his icloud account so it stays useless to the thieves that took it.

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

FINAL TIP
=======
everyone should turn off control center access from the lock screen so the thief can't put it in airplane mode.

Kind of moot as they can always power off the phone.

 

[Paco II]

I appreciate the Find My Phone feature to help locate a misplaced phone, and to wipe a stolen phone. But are people really using it to track down stolen phones? Is this with police involvement, or individuals attempting to personally retrieve their phone from the thief?

 

[Velin]

My friends iphone was stolen and he has find my iphone turned on everything. Whoever took it has turned it off but they have turned it on a few times

Can someone explain this? Are you talking about the iPhone being turned on and off? Or Find My iPhone? I surely hope the former, because it should be impossible to do the latter sans iCloud account information, especially the password.