If you remember, Apple introduced a new feature called 'Find My iPhone' in iPhone OS 3.0 for MobileMe
We had doubted the effectiveness of the feature but Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has just reported that an iPhone user was able to direct the police to the location of the men who had robbed him at gunpoint thanks to the “Find My iPhone” feature.
According to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the victim was approached by two men who asked him to handover his wallet and asked for his PIN number for his credit cards at gunpoint.
The victim later logged into his MobileMe account to find the location of his iPhone and informed the police.
The police were able to nab the robbers at a gas station and also recovered a pellet gun, stolen ID cards, credit cards and cash.
The two robbers will be charged with two counts each of access device fraud, conspiracy, receiving stolen property and possessing instruments of crime and will also be charged with robbery.
Kudos to the victim for using the “Find My iPhone” feature to nab the robbers.
If you are worried about your iPhone being stolen or lost then you can buy MobileMe service at Amazon for a 25% discount
[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via TUAW]
I used Find My iPhone when my daughter left her phone in a cab – I displayed a message to call me and had it play the sound – within 5 minutes I had a call from the taxi driver, and was able to get him to drop the phone off where my daughter was, all within about half an hour.
She'd already lost 2 iPhones (insured, thankfully), but this is much better than paying an excess and getting a new phone. It was cool watching the phone being driven around, and I was able to let my daughter know when the cab was nearby.
Yes, this can be disabled pretty easily (just set a pin code to make it a little harder) – if you can do the tracking sooner rather than later, you'll increase your chances of finding the phone tremendously.
I see that a similar, non-Apple app has come onto the store, with some features which might be enough for those not wanting to subscribe to MobileMe. For the few bucks, it might be worth investigating if you don't have a MobileMe sub. Between Find My iPhone and over the air syncing, I just paid for a subscription.
Sean
Disclaimer: I work for an Apple (but not iPhone) reseller – would still buy MobileMe even if I didn't for Find My iPhone and over-the-air syncing
That's pretty cool. Thanks Sean for sharing your experience with MobileMe.
Let's hope these features get even smarter (cannot be disabled easily) so
that we can fight back against robbers and oh yeah, our forgetfulness.
MobileMe is an interesting feature and a great thing to have on your phone just in case. Fortunately, I have never had to use it, but I know if I do end up losing my phone or (God forbid) getting robbed, I will have some extra insurance that might help me get my phone back. I do think that it should not be easy to disable MobileMe on the iPhone. I think it should require your MobileMe password if you want to disable it.