An iPhone crusader's tale of retrieving his stolen phone
You should read this tale of a man using the new iPhone's "find me" feature to locate his stolen cell phone after attending a Lego convention in Chicago. It's a great tale. (Gosh, I just hope it's true!)
A snippet:
So I felt like about zero cents, but then we giddily realized that I had *just* activated the brand-new Find My iPhone service. Even better, Mark had a Sprint (yes, Sprint) USB dongle giving him Internet access over 3G on his MacBook Pro. Excited to try it out, we hopped onto me.com and clicked the Find My iPhone link.
Wonder if Apple realizes that they could have legions of iPhone vigilantes who'll be going off hunting their stolen handsets with the help of GPS technology and mobile web connections?
Do you see a potential problem here -- or does this just mean more power for the consumer and the victimized citizen?
(FYI: This story was originally featured on SlashDot; I got tipped off to this tale by @justinemaki)
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Comments
I'm of two minds about this.
1. Police probably won't help you find your iPhone, so if you don't do anything to locate it, it's probably gone forever.
2. It's dangerous to go after someone who stole something because, hey, the dude already broke the law once (and what's stopping him from doing it again?)
If my phone went missing, I might try to track it down, but I'd at least get a couple burly friends to help. It would really depend on the situation (and where the phone seems to be -- I wouldn't want to look for it in many parts of Baltimore). It's a valuable piece of equipment, but it's not worth bodily harm.
Posted by: Justine | June 22, 2009 4:26 PM
Can this feature tell me which cushion of the couch my phone is behind?
Now THAT would be truly useful. Hear that Mr. Jobs? -gs
Posted by: MWW | June 22, 2009 5:17 PM