Any way to track stolen iPhone 4 without having previously installed an app

Try reading the thread to which you replied.

Apple does not track lost/stolen devices.

Contact the carrier and local law enforcement.

Nothing that anyone here can do for you.

It's possible to get a stolen iPhone back. I just had the (un)pleasant experience of having to track down a stolen iPhone this past weekend ... and got it back. I wrote more about it on a blog post:

http://blog.zenone.org/2012/02/retrieving-stolen-iphone-in-under-72.html

-Steve

smart phones usually connect to multiple web services.

Gmail for example, will show you the last 10 connections

Then you can get the ip s

It's probably me. Gmail will supply the IP addresses of the last ten calls made? OK... Like the post office will tell me the addresses on the last ten letters I posted, so that fixes my location?

Gmail gives the ips from the last 10 places where accessed the Gmail.

you just need to wait the phone to check email, then you get the ip.

Every time the phone reach an open wi-fi, it will sign into, leaving a trace.

If you cross the info provided by all your apps, with some other relevant data, you maybe will know which door to knock.

<Edited by Host>

I'm sorry, but you are wrong. Most ISPs use dynamic addressing. I could tell you my IP address right now, and could then change it by simply breaking the connection and reconnecting. The only way to know who is using an IP address at any point in time and what their address is, is by going to the ISP with a court order and a lot of patience.

justamancr wrote:

Gmail gives the ips from the last 10 places where accessed the Gmail.

you just need to wait the phone to check email, then you get the ip.

Every time the phone reach an open wi-fi, it will sign into, leaving a trace.

If you cross the info provided by all your apps, with some other relevant data, you maybe will know which door to knock.

<Edited by Host>

Of course you realize that any thief with even an time bit of technical knowledge will know that all they need do is restore the iPhone as a new device, and all the prevous owners content is gone. They can then begin using the iPhone as their own personal device. Any information like account settings by the previous owner are wiped clean, so it is never going to connect to the previous owners accounts again.

I had my IPhone 4s stolen 10 days ago in Toronto from my workplace. I reported it to the carrier and police. A detective was assigned the case. He has checked the carrier to which the phone was locked. And he is checking the other two Canadian carriers which support iPhone. The officer is adamant that once the phone is put on the system, even with a new SIM, that the carrier will know because the IMEI can't be changed. My view is that the thief will use the phone and as such, when he does, it is traceable. The cop is going to call the carriers weekly. So far, nothing. But unless the information I have is wrong, the carrier will know if my phone is on their system and who is using it.

Consumer SOS wrote:

I had my IPhone 4s stolen 10 days ago in Toronto from my workplace. I reported it to the carrier and police. A detective was assigned the case. He has checked the carrier to which the phone was locked. And he is checking the other two Canadian carriers which support iPhone. The officer is adamant that once the phone is put on the system, even with a new SIM, that the carrier will know because the IMEI can't be changed. My view is that the thief will use the phone and as such, when he does, it is traceable. The cop is going to call the carriers weekly. So far, nothing. But unless the information I have is wrong, the carrier will know if my phone is on their system and who is using it.

You have a good police department it seems. I've never denied that law enforcement has means to track stolen cellular devices. That has always been the case, that law enforcement officials can do so, either through cooperation of the carrier, or by forcing them with a court order. All I've ever claimed is that Apple has nothing to do with this - this sort of thing is rightfully handled by law enforcement agencies and the court system, as seems to be working in your case. Of course the devices CAN be tracked, the issue is who should assume responsability for actually initiating that action. In your case, I think the system is working just as it should - you reported a crime to the police, they must have been reasonably assured your claim was legitimate and now they are investigating the case and working to catch the thief, recover the stolen items or both. I hope they do - good luck.

Michael:

Thanks for the reply. Your points are all valid. What I have quickly learned since this happened is that the carriers don't go out of their way to do much; there is no sharing of the IMEI numbers between carriers; and that in all likelihood, most consumers probably get angry then go buy another phone because it's too time-consuming to try and get it back. You're right: it's not Apple's problem. I just wish there was some good information readily available to people about what to do, who to contact, who to pressure -- in order to try and get the device returned. I'm learning this as I go. This forum has been very useful to me.

One problem is that there is a world-wide market for iPhones, so your phone could be in China right now. You are fortunate that the police have taken an interest; there are so many thousands of phones stolen every day that police generally don't make much of an effort to recover them.

Last night, someone stole my daughter's iphone 4. We tracked it from a shopping center to another store using "Find my iphone" app. Then, when my daughter went into the store and told the few people in there that she knew the phone was there - "surprisingly" we lost the tracking signal because they must have powered the phone off when they knew it was being tracked. Some of the people left the store abruptly and we didn't recover the phone. So, my question is why doesn't Apple or someone else give you the option of remotely turning the device back on? If I could just turn it on, we would be able to locate it right now and this would probably help thousands of other people find their phones. This seems like such a simple solution and I can't find anyone that offers this service. Can anyone offer any advice?

Wouldn't it be nice if it were that easy? A thief could also just remove the SIM, and I doubt that it would be possible for Apple to write software to reinsert the SIM.

Not to mention the paradox. If it is OFF how is it going to receive a signal to turn it on?

kep21 wrote:

Last night, someone stole my daughter's iphone 4. We tracked it from a shopping center to another store using "Find my iphone" app. Then, when my daughter went into the store and told the few people in there that she knew the phone was there - "surprisingly" we lost the tracking signal because they must have powered the phone off when they knew it was being tracked. Some of the people left the store abruptly and we didn't recover the phone. So, my question is why doesn't Apple or someone else give you the option of remotely turning the device back on? If I could just turn it on, we would be able to locate it right now and this would probably help thousands of other people find their phones. This seems like such a simple solution and I can't find anyone that offers this service. Can anyone offer any advice?

Simple answer is that once the phone is turned off, it is fully powered down and the wifi and cellular radios are off. There is no way to send any kind of signal to it to turn on since it is not listening for any signal of any kind - it is fully and truly powered off.

The only way to do what you want would be to redesign the phone to never power off and always be monitoring, at least periodically, the cellular and/or wifi radios.

And even so, by now the thief has had ample time to simple restore the device as new, and all your info, including the settings in iCloud for find my iphone (indeed the iCloud account itself) have been wiped from the device.

I appreciate your response to my question and I understand now that if it doesn't have a signal there is no way to send one to it. However, our phones are through Verizon, and I don't think we have SIM cards that can be removed. Also, I locked the phone immediately and I don't think they can reset it without having access to the settings. So, I am hopeful that if they power the phone back on, it will update it's location. Forgive my lack of knowledge if I am wrong to think that, I am learning as I go. There is nothing more frustrating than to have a piece of technology that is so advanced and yet useless all at the same time when something like this happens.