So, how well does MobileMe's ' Find my iPhone' work?

[glazner]

Here's a story from my college roomie Kevin, who recently found himself separated against his will from his beloved iPhone while out of town at a Lego convention (yeah, he's a dork). It's a thriller that involves suspense, sketchy dive bars, and three white nerdy guys running through a Puerto Rican neighborhood with a laptop open in order to recover his Precious.

happywaffle.livejournal.com (no link since I just signed up and can't post links...I'm a lurker)

For those that can't handle the thought of an iPhone separated from its adoring owner, fear not! All ends well.

 

[brett837]

That was a good read! Glad it all turned out well.

 

[chobbs1]

Great story. It brings to light some if the short commings of "find my phone". Such as, if the would be robber had any idea how the phone worked he could've just turned that feature off before getting caught. Perhaps that feature should have it's own password. I alway like having my phone passord locked but would like a second password to change the find my phone setting.

 

[jr3153]

I was playing around with the feature on both mine and my wife's iphone. I turned on the feature on my wifes iphone, then sent a message. Since hers does not have a passcode, I then simulated the possibility of some one turning off the locate feature. To my suprise, it still received the messages I sent to it. I then turned off the phone, and turned it back on, thinking that it would disable the feature on the reboot, however it did not, it still kept receiving the message I sent to it, so I think it still works even if it is turned off. Has anybody else tried this?

 

[PSM]

Kevin's adventure is much more exciting than mine.

Yesterday I was looking for my iPhone and realized I hadn't seen it in a few hours. I knew it was somewhere in my apartment, but I looked in the living room, the bedroom and the bathroom, and didn't see it. There was also the slight possibility that someone had come into my apartment while I was in the shower and taken it (the building I'm staying in has key-card entry and sometimes maintenance arrives unannounced). Rather than tearing the place upside down, I decided to try out Find My iPhone. The GPS map showed it was still in the building. So I sent it a message with audio, and immediately heard it chirping. After a short search I tracked it down to the bedroom, then to the bed, and finally found it under my pillow, where I must have covered it when I got up.

It was a fun way to test out the feature in a sort-of real-world situation. Thankfully it hadn't gone far, but it's good to know that in a more serious situation it will work.

 

[PSM]

I was playing around with the feature on both mine and my wife's iphone. I turned on the feature on my wifes iphone, then sent a message. Since hers does not have a passcode, I then simulated the possibility of some one turning off the locate feature. To my suprise, it still received the messages I sent to it. I then turned off the phone, and turned it back on, thinking that it would disable the feature on the reboot, however it did not, it still kept receiving the message I sent to it, so I think it still works even if it is turned off. Has anybody else tried this?

That would be really cool if it still worked for a certain period of time. Unfortunately I just tried this and MobileMe reports back that I have Find My iPhone disabled on the device. I really don't understand why Apple would spend so much time to make such a great feature, and then leave out something so simple like requiring the user to input the device's passcode to turn it off.

If anyone finds a way to reproduce jr's experience I'd love to know!

 

[chobbs1]

Perhaps it will come in a future update to the software! Sure hope so!

 

[gary_gnu]

I was successfully able to locate my iPhone within a two block radius. Of course, I verified this by looking up from my place on the couch and checking to make sure it was in its dock...

Wouldn't take much to defeat it, though. Even if you can't find the setting to turn it off in the Settings bar, all you'd have to do is turn it off.