MobileMe finds a missing iPad but it's not a happy ending

Find My iPhone/iPad is one terrific benefit of MobileMe. In fact, to me, it is the best part of the service. For an Indiana man, the ability to find a missing iPad worked as it should, but too late to do much good.

Here's the depressing story. One of our readers was moving stuff into his car with his Dad. With hands full, Dad put the iPad on the hood of the car. Then the pair drove off, leaving the iPad in the street. When our reader discovered the missing iPad he went straight to MobileMe, and the service dutifully located the iPad a few blocks away.

The police assumed the iPad was stolen, and as they searched the apartment building where the location was, the police asked the owner to send a sound to the iPad so it could be found. They did locate the iPad, and the guy who had it said he found it in the street and was going to try to find the owner the next day.

The iPad had been run over while it was in the street, and the case didn't look too spiffy, but amazingly the iPad still worked well enough to contact MobileMe servers, but the screen was cracked and not displaying anything.

Lessons #1: don't leave your iPad on the top of a car. It's unlikely to stay there. Lesson #2: Find My iPhone really does work. Lesson #3: the iPad can "take a licking and keep on ticking," as the watch commercials used to say.

Check the gallery for Find My Phone in action and the grim results.

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Thanks to Jack K. for sending us his tale of woe