You know, we might be inclined to disbelieve this exciting tale of derring-do if it weren't for the highly improbably heroics and ingenuity displayed by its three protagonists -- you just can't make this stuff up. Probably. Kevin, Ryan and Mark were in Chicago minding their own nerdness out at Brickworld when Kevin left his iPhone behind at a dive bar. When they went back for it just minutes later the phone was gone, and instead of calling the cops like a bunch of suckers, Kevin and co. did the
right thing and pulled out a Sprint 3G dongle and a MacBook Pro. Unfortunately,
Find My iPhone couldn't get a lock on his phone at all -- it was either off or out of data range. The next day at lunch he finally got a delivery confirmation message from me.com, which kicked off a wild, dangerous chase into the wilds of Chicago. We won't spoil the ending for you (he finds the iPhone), but Kevin does raise a couple good points about the service functionality: you need to pull up MobileMe on laptop to use the service (instead of perhaps another iPhone), movement updates aren't pushed, ringer volume impacts alert volume whether the phone is on vibrate or not, and there should be an option for controlling the phone in more nefarious ways like taking pictures. We're glad it all ended up well, but those moments of Lego bliss that Kevin and his friends missed out on are gone forever.
[Thanks, Tristan W.]
posted Jun 23rd 2009 12:42PM
LOL No comment
Technically, that's a comment.
Technically, iPwn.
@Az1Z
but... you just... i mean... if it wasn't... how could... ????.... ????!!!....?!!?!?!?!?!?!.......?!?!!?!?!1111oneone!!!!!111?!?!>,[]fodfliiihgf....{}_{}.....
ಢ_ಢ
your paradoxical commentary has thrown off my sense of reality. i will probably die of mental disruption within the next 24 hours.
My girlfriend from Chicago was visiting last week here in Atlanta. She has a Samsung Instinct. Well, we went to Chili's one night at discovered the next day that she'd left her phone. When we returned the next day it was gone and no one had turned it in. Her parents were so furious with her and she was crying. So, we went online and it saw that owners of that phone could sign up for a "family locator" service which basically lets parents play Big Brother with their kids. We signed up for a free trial and immediately tested it out.
The damn thing pinpointed the ADDRESS in which the phone had been taken to. It had been taken 50 miles away. We then went on Zillow.com and got a street view of the house and property values of the area. Redneck central. We could even see a pickup truck in the driveway. Instead of being dumb and calling the police and dealing with legal bullshit, we texted the phone saying that if the phone isn't returned to Chili's by the evening that the police would be sent to their house off Charles S Floyd Road in Loganville.
Apparently that freaked them out because we watched them on the locator take it back to Chili's. We had the phone by that evening.
@Le Master
You took your girlfriend from Chicago to Chilis but the person who took the phone is a redneck?
ok...
@Le Master
Awesome totally awesome! PWN the thief!
@ Le Master
That was very satisfying to read. Thanks, nice work, and congratulations!
@Le master: Lies!...and nice website plug.
What happened to the good old days of finders keeper!
Haha, no lies. Just a little anecdote. I stood in line with my gf for two hours the other night and got the 3G [S]. And I'm not plugging Zillow; for all I know there are a hundred other sites just like it.
@ Le Master
This thing works only because your thief was a real dumb - maybe a kid - he's not taken out your sim card from phone - that's why you've successfully texted him.
My iPhone 1gen was stolen in march last year from my hands in subway by some drugmaniac - and first that he has done - is pulled my sim card and throw it away - I tried to call on the number right after that...
I don't think so that such service will work with foreign sim-card.
And even Find my iPhone service won't work without sim card inside the phone.
Sprint phones like the Instinct don't have sim cards :)
Nice to know your journalists are able to read gizmodo.
I really like this story though, even though they are at a Lego convention.
gizmodo is a good site. albeit they love apple WAY WAY WAY more than engadget ever could. still a good site nonetheless
It was in the forums on MacRumors before it was on Gizmodo.
Lego are cool.
Need this for Ps3, mines got stolen.
Just look for someone with a really disappointed face.
What the hell were you doing carrying a PS3 around?
I would now argue the merits of a 12 gauge with 00 buckshot. Thats my theft insurance. but this is engadget. so i won't.
How can someone steal an ore depository...
Who the hell said i was carrying it with me? My house got rob, and if i was minutes away from when the act was committed someone would've gotten a hurt real bad.
@CreepinJesus
Pro comment
@warrreennnnn
rofl
There needs to be something like that application that lets you track your Mac and use the webcam to take photos of the robber, as well as simulate a screen death so that the guy takes it to the repair shop. Once it's there, it automatically alerts the repairman and pretty much every fuckin person in the store that the computer was stolen. Anyone know the name of this program?
Its "Undercover" on the Mac.
a bunch of those available, like undercover, mentioned above. Google Mac theft protection software.
Or Bing it now... doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
CreepinJesus: Or since Bing is basically a skin of Google (from what I've seen anyway), just Google it.
(Admittedly, I haven't used Bing much. I just checked it out once or twice, and ran a search on Bing at the same time as one on Google for the same thing... same results....)
Bing is a microsoft search engine, google is a separate company.
Seems like the $99/year charge of mobileME is not even close to worth the price.
Any word on if ejecting the sim card or resetting the iphone will disable the service? Casue then it would be very not worth it.
Or, I suppose, you can just turn the phone off.
well the service is not that great. This was all only possible because the person who stole it was stupid enough to keep the phone ON. The minute you switch off the phone, the "Find Me" element is useless. Going further, once the person throws it into iTunes and does a restore - you can say bye bye to your phone.
The only saving grace is that if you kept a record of your IMEI number - you can give that to your service provider which would block the phone and render it unuseable. So you wouldn't get the phone back, but at least the thief would not get any benefit from stealing it.
it's worse....http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10270273-2.html
You could just remove the batter.... oh wait. :D
I think the whole point is that the primary use of the software was so you can find where your phone is say when you left it in the car or at work. Apple never claimed this to be a theft software. That said, all the cnet info is correct, you could also just choose to keep the phone locked all the time.
Can you can subscribe to mobile me when you have lost your phone?
Dumb thieves should have eject the sim card.
@Sax25
Imei disabling won't make anything.
The thief does not need your stupid phone! - Many real thieves are very superstitious - they know that the curse can be made on stolen thing - so they selling all stuff immediately - this will get real cash and preventing anyones curse. And they never using stolen stuff personally for the same reasons.
Such iPhones immediately after restoring appear on eBay - for sale to foreign countries - where USA phone companies Imei blacklisting not working.
Usually such phone sells below normal price and goes sold in some minutes.
findmyi.org has offered this service for jailbroken iPhones and IPods for some time and does not have the limitation that you must use a laptop. You can access their tools from an Iphone and a basic account is free and only when you require more accurate tracking do you need to pay either a nominal monthly charge or a one time use charge. I have no affiliation with them but I used their service to track a stolen phone throughout Tahoe. Unfortunately the signal was lost to never return before I could catch the culprit, but the service worked well.
I wonder if the "service" could still find the phone somehow if they removed its SIM and then restored it. Ponder ponder!
There is a company that makes a similar software for windows mobile phones and other cell phone pdas. The software would work even if the sim card was replaced. In fact the software sent an automatic warning anytime the sim card was replaced. I would imagine Apple figured this out too.
Why do through all that? Shouldn't the thief just turn off the "Find my iPhone" feature instead?
Tried to get this to work on my 2G but the slider to turn the feature on in the phone was grayed out. Now MobileMe thinks that is still my phone even though I have registered my 3GS and everything. I can't even get Push e-mail yet.
Still haven't gotten automatic MobileMe sync on my Mac to work.
Let me just say I am past aggrivated at this point.
Delete the mobileme email account on the 2G and the 3GS. Redo the account on the 3GS. That's what I did to get it to point to my new phone instead of my old one. Make sure you've got push on for that mail account as well.
Hope that might help you.
I have already formatted the 2G. Powered it back up to make sure it didn't save anything. Deleted .me from 3GS and resubmitted it and I can use the phone locator. It works.
Hopefully push e-mail is working again.
Now, if I could make MobileMe to work properly on my Mac Pro. The box you check to sync disappears every time I close system preferences so I cannot tell it to automatically sync or even manually sync.
Oh well, for another day.
I emailed my cousin, a 10-year veteran cop, and he said that people trying to "enact justice" on their own cause way, way more injustice and violence than they prevent.
Hmm, let me see? Perp robs me, i catch perp, beat the the ps3 or xbox360 (crap) out of him, recover stolen property. Where's the injustice?
that may be true, but with the real cops on the case, there's not a chance in hell he'd have gotten his phone back.