Hi! My daughter’s phone was stolen at school while it was in airplane mode. I could not locate it on my phone, but my wife could on hers? I don’t understand this! I thought it couldn’t be found when in airplane mode? My wife and my daughter has the same network provider and I have a different one, could that be the reason?
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
iPhone 13
Without being able to see what it's reporting on your wife's phone I can only guess, and that guess is that she's seeing the last position the iPhone sent before it was put into Airplane Mode, a location which probably isn't even remotely current now. The cell carrier being used will not matter. Either that or the iPhone wasn't secured properly and the thief was able to get in and turn off Airplane Mode; unlikely but I can't say that it's impossible.
Regards.
Without being able to see what it's reporting on your wife's phone I can only guess, and that guess is that she's seeing the last position the iPhone sent before it was put into Airplane Mode, a location which probably isn't even remotely current now. The cell carrier being used will not matter. Either that or the iPhone wasn't secured properly and the thief was able to get in and turn off Airplane Mode; unlikely but I can't say that it's impossible.
Regards.
By default, "Turning on Airplane Mode turns off all radios except for Bluetooth." If you change Wi-Fi or Bluetooth settings while in Airplane Mode, the phone will remember the new settings for use later. So, depending on what your daughter has changed, while in Airplane mode, in the past, it is possible that Wi-Fi and/or Bluetooth could be turned on.
If she never changed Wi-Fi or Bluetooth settings while in Airplane Mode, it sounds like Bluetooth would still be on, so there would be a remote chance of the iPhone being located AirTag-style, via Find My Network.
I think it might be “air-tag” mode, since my wife could track the phone real time and the phone was found at the location from her tracking. But why wasn’t I able to se the phone?
Unable to locate my daughter's stolen iPhone when its in Airplane mode
