iPhone and iPad Activation Lock Coming in iOS 7
Those of you who have been diligent in securing your iOS devices with passcodes, wiping and Find My iPhone, just to have a thief restore your device and keep on going – well – your prayers have been answered. Coming in iOS 7 is a great feature called ‘Activation Lock’.
With Activation Lock enabled, even if your iPhone or iPad is restored to its factory settings, the user will need to activate the device using the Apple ID of the previous user. Also, if the device was put into Lost Mode in Find My iPhone, the lock screen will continue to display the fact that it is lost until the device is activated.
This is a hugely useful feature that, if used properly, will make iPhones and iPads a significantly less attractive target to thieves, as the stolen devices would be rendered useless to them. It was nice to see Apple address one of the main concerns that users have been expressing about the bypass-ability of Find My iPhone. Check out Protecting and Recovering Your iPhone and iPad from Loss and Theft (will be updated soon with this new feature).
New “Lost Mode” in Find My iPhone (iCloud)
With iOS 6, Apple will be releasing an updated set of web apps on iCloud.com, including Mail, Calendar, Notes, Reminders and Find My iPhone. Find My iPhone is a useful feature that allows you to track or wipe your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch should it get lost or stolen. For more info check out my article on Protecting and Recovering Your iPhone and iPad from Loss and Theft. In this post I just want to point out the changes to Find My iPhone, in particular the new “Lost Mode”. Read more
Frequently Asked Questions About Find My iPhone (and iPad)
I’ve been getting a lot of hits for my article on Protecting and Recovering Your iPhone and iPad from Loss and Theft, and the search queries I’m seeing in my logs, together with the visitor comments, have raised a number of recurring questions. I’ve decided to publish this one-stop-shop of answers for all of the different queries that I see people searching for when they arrive. Although my article addresses a number of these, I wanted to put them all in one post for easy reference. I’ll update this post as new questions crop up. Here goes, in no particular order:
Locate Lost or Stolen Macs with ‘Find My Mac’ in Lion and iCloud
Apple’s popular Find My iPhone feature of MobileMe is being extended to Macs as well, as part of iCloud and Lion (10.7.2). It will also allow the person who found or stole the machine to login using a limited guest account (with only access to Safari), in order to allow your Mac to connect to the internet. As with the iOS version, Find My Mac will allow you to remotely send a message, lock or even wipe your computer.
I’m guessing the geolocation will be limited to triangulating local wireless networks, but I’m hoping it will also send back the public IP address of the network it’s currently connected to, which would help significantly when trying to recover a stolen device. I wonder how developers of commercial Mac tracking software are feeling right about now?
For more info and pictures check out this post at Cult of Mac. In other news, iOS 5 will finally bring the ability to delete entries from your call history.
Find My iPhone Brings Improved Offline Device Support
Apple has released an update to their free Find My iPhone offering, which greatly improves the support for tracking devices that are offline at the time. Note that this doesn’t mean you can track an iPhone or iPad that is turned off, or out of signal range (not possible). Instead, if a device is offline when you try to locate it, Apple will later send you an email with its location the next time that device gets back online. Thanks to this, it’s no longer necessary to constantly be checking the Find My iPhone app/webpage. Here is Apple’s summary of the changes:
- When you are unable to locate a device because it is offline, you will receive an email if the device comes online and is located.
- Ability to remove an offline device from the list using the app.
Note, it appears this updated feature is only available using the Find My iPhone app (version 1.2) available in the App Store – it is not yet available in the MobileMe web interface. I assume it won’t be updated until the new iCloud Find My iPhone web interface is launched. [Update: I was right.]
For more information on how to use this great free service to recover your iOS devices, check out Protecting and Recovering Your iPhone and iPad from Loss and Theft.
Protecting and Recovering Your iPhone and iPad from Loss and Theft
My sister recently had her iPhone stolen, and it occurred to me that not enough people know how to help protect their iPhone/iPad from theft, what to do if it gets lost or stolen, and the steps to take even if they’re unable to get it back. Using a combination of security tips and geolocation, using Find My iPhone, you should have a much higher chance of recovering your device. Note that although this article is iPhone/iPad-centric… the principles apply to any smartphone!
NEW! Please refer to my Find My iPhone FAQ for the answers to some frequently asked questions (especially before asking a question in the comments). Read more
iOS 4.2.1 Released with Free “Find My iPhone”
Apple has finally released the highly-anticipated iOS 4.2 (actual version is 4.2.1), bringing support for the iPad along with several other feature including AirPlay and AirPrint.
Along with this release, Apple has made the “Find My iPhone” functionality in MobileMe free to all iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch device owners. This service uses a combination of GPS, cell tower and wifi-network triangulation to obtain the location of the device, which can then be mapped. It also allows you to send messages, lock or completely wipe the remote device. To use this feature, you’ll need add a MobileMe account using your iTunes Apple ID by going to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add account. You can then track your device using the Find My iPhone app available in iTunes, or using the MobileMe web interface.
Users concerned about the privacy implications of this feature can easily disable it by going to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendar > Select your MobileMe account > Set ‘Find My iPhone’ to Off. Have a look at Apple’s KnowledgeBase article for more info on this feature.
iOS 4.2.1 brings with it a number of security updates (including Safari and numerous WebKit patches). Although it’s not mentioned in the update details, the previously-reported cool-but-deadly keylock bypass vulnerability has been fixed. Hit the jump for full details.
Related: Protecting and Recovering Your iPhone and iPad from Loss and Theft!
Loading ...
