Yesterday, my friend and I were discussing about making an application as a mini project. My friend came up with the idea of finding your lost phone by sending some message, turning on the volume or using any other technique. I found the idea interesting and useful and agreed to give it a second thought. However, while surfing through the amazing Apple App Store, I came across this ‘Find My iPhone’ app. Find My iPhone app covers almost all the features that can be helpful to locate your gadget. It is a free built in app but you need to activate it, as we will discuss soon. Although I had to drop the idea of making one app like this, but I have checked all the features available and ready to serve you now.
Activate Find My iPhone App:
Find My iPhone app is appealing to anyone who posses this gadget. You need to take a few steps to activate this app before losing your gadget for the first time. Activation is quite simple; go to settings and perform the following steps:
ü Turn on iCloud
ü Enable ‘Find My iPhone’ App
ü Enable location services
Now if you have lost your iPhone or is stolen unfortunately, you can log on to www.icloud.com to track your iPhone. Follow the sequence:
1. Visit www.icloud.com
2. Log in to your Apple ID
3. Go to Find My iPhone App
4. It will locate your iPhone on the Google Map
5. Click on the blue icon to do the following, as soon :
Ø Send Message
Ø Play sound
Ø Remote lock your iPhone
Ø Wipe off personal data
Send Message:
If you have lost your iPhone at the café or the coffee shop, you don’t know who will find your iPhone. And, if you have locked the iPhone then the next person will be unable to contact with you, even if he honestly wants to give it back to you. What can you do in this situation? Simple, send a message on your iPhone. For example, ’Hey, I am Fred Solomon. I forgot my iPhone , if you have found it; kindly contact me at 123456789 or deliver it to the shop administration. Thank you’. This message will appear even if the iPhone is locked.
Play Sound:
Sometimes, we are unable to find our gadgets in our bags, or when iPhone hides itself somewhere in between the large piles of paper. While you are enjoying movie and the corns , your iPhone finds its way down the cushions. In all these cases, all you need to find your iPhone is the ‘Ringtone’. You do not need to ask anyone else to give a missed call at your number; rather you can play a sound at your own. And, the interesting thing is, it will work in the silent mode as well. Yes, it will override volume settings and play ringtone or sound for a few seconds so that you can find it easily.
Lock your lost iPhone:
In case, you have forgotten your iPhone at your competitive office or any of your relative’s home, your iPhone’s privacy is at risk. You may don’t have any objectionable content in it but still anyone can misuse your information. And if you have some naughty friends, they will definitely play some trick with you so that they can enjoy your miserable condition. Oh come on, they can simply change your ringtone to any embarrassing ringtone so that you are shocked the next time, your iPhone rings at the workplace. To avoid all these setting mischievous acts, you can protect your iPhone by setting a four digit remote pass code to it.
Wipe off Personal Data:
If you get to know that you have lost your iPhone in a public place or in some unsafe hands, then you have a choice to wipe off all your personal data. This feature is more important to military men, journalist, politicians or any other figures that carry confidential data along with them. And this information, if exposed to non-relevant hands, can cause a great harm in any manner. So, it is always a better choice to remove all data immediately. Now, you must be thinking that how will you gather back all that important information? Well, you do not need to worry. Thanks to iCloud that enables you to stay updated with your latest information and recover all data using Backup utility.
Argument:
Although it is a very nice idea but there is a lot of improvement required to make this app flawless. It is not accurate enough when it locates the iPhone. What will you do if you lost your iPhone and it is powered off due to low battery or if someone, intentionally, switched it off? Another most vulnerable point is its dependency on internet and location services. What if the thief has turned off internet and location services? Remember, it can work only when these services are enabled? But, still something is better than nothing. It is not the worst case always that happens, so you should give this app a try.
We strongly recommend you to see this tutorial so that you get to know how to use Find My iPhone App.
Stay i-tuned! Stay blessed!
About Rahmeen Ahmad Khan
Very good written post. It will be helpful to everyone who employess it, including me. Keep up the good work – i will definitely read more posts.