Finding a lost phone?

Firstly, I am sorry you have encountered a bad experience from the salesperson that sold you your iPhone.

The feature is a free service from MobileMe. You could have found it pretty easily when you started your email with your iPhone, it's how I found out about Find my iPhone. Even if someone stole your iPhone, police cannot make a warrant to search someone's house for an iPhone, and you can't really get it back if it was stolen in general.

To provide feedback and suggestions to make the Find my iPhone utility more available and well known, visit the link below.

http://www.apple.com/feedback

Is there anyway to find a lost iPhone?

If you had Apple's "Find My Phone" feature activated for your phone before it was lost or stolen, yes. Otherwise, no. Carriers/providers will not track lost or stolen phones without a court order.

Immediately change passwords for email & anything else you might have entered a password for on your phone. Report the loss to your carrier who will disable your sim/account.

I emailed several of my buddies this afternoon who own iPhones and told them to look into this app. Not a single one of them (5 of them) knew it existed.

You have an interesting experience. I know of no one without the 'Find my iPhone' App.

Until a few months ago, Find My iPhone was part of the paid Mobile Me service. Users wanted it free, so Apple responded, making this part of Mobile Me free to everyone. There was a lot of talk about it at that time.

Back to the Apple Store... did you get a Personal Setup? I understand they will ask if you want Find My iPhone on at that time.

There are lots of workshops at the Apple Store (free!) where you can learn lots about your phone. Also, you can look around the apple website and find more info too. i've always been the type to learn as much as I can about a new product, so when I got my phone, I did a ton of research. I still have lots to learn, though. LOL

Tom Kirkman wrote:
Hard to find out about something you're not looking for or know exists.

I emailed several of my buddies this afternoon who own iPhones and told them to look into this app. Not a single one of them (5 of them) knew it existed.

...............

Find my iphone is covered in the manual. Had you looked through it, you would know about it.

http://manuals.info.apple.com/enUS/iphone_userguide.pdf


"A MobileMe Free Account lets you use Find My iPhone (not available in all countries or regions), a feature that helps you locate and protect the information on your iPhone if it’s lost or stolen. See “Security Features” on page 50>."

"Find My iPhone
Find My iPhone helps you locate and secure your iPhone using the free Find My iPhone app on another iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, or using a Mac or PC with a web browser. Find My iPhone includes: Â Locate on a map: View the approximate location of your iPhone on a full-screen map
 Display a Message or Play a Sound: Lets you compose a message that will appear on your iPhone screen, or play a sound at full volume for two minutes, even if the Ring/Silent switch is set to silent
 Remote Passcode Lock: Lets you remotely lock your iPhone and create a 4-digit passcode, if you haven’t set one previously
 Remote Wipe: Lets you protect your privacy by erasing all media and data on iPhone, restoring it to factory settings
Use Find My iPhone: You need to turn on Find My iPhone on iPhone before you can use these features. See “Setting Up MobileMe Accounts” on page 26.
To locate your missing iPhone and use the other Find My iPhone features, download the free Find My iPhone app from the App Store on another iOS device, or sign in to me.com in a web browser on a Mac or PC."

Find my iPhone is a very basic app that may give its owner a false sense of security. It can be easily deactivated by many so the owner can never detect its location or wipe its memory.

I am not sure if Apple has made any improvement on this yet, coz I read few articles in magazines few months ago showing how to turn off Find my iPhone app with ease.

Bottom line is, dont be too upset you do not have this app. Chances are, you wont be able to find your lost iPhone anyway. Hopefully Apple will fix this soon, if they havent already.

You can stop the crook from disabling it by pass codes. You can also set a passcode wirelessly. There is nothing you can do better to this app. Police cannot retrieve it or ask for a search warrant just because an app shows where it supposedly is.