Stolen iPhone 4S / I'm surprised there isn't a better recovery system

This has absolutely nothing to do with whether it is Apple's responsibility or not. I'm not blaming Apple for someone else's dishonesty. That doesn't mean they can't provide a simple service for their customers. Why does Apple provide any feature beyond the ability to place a phone call? They provide additional features to improve the appeal and usefulness of their product. Furthermore, Apple clearly already added a few features to help a customer recover their phone so they could easily expand this offering to be even more useful. Heck, they could even monetize it as part of a subscription service (e.g. MobileMe.)

Julian Wright wrote:

Takes about 5 minutes to setup.

As I explained, I only had the phone for a month and wasn't familiar with the new features for iCloud/iOS 5. I've never lost a phone before so never even thought to search for such a feature.

KiltedTim wrote:

They DO provide a tracking mechanism. YOU chose not to enable it.

Actually, I didn't choose anything. I wasn't aware of the feature at the time and, as I said above, I've never lost a phone before so never thought to look for such a feature. The phone was setup by the agent at the store (I would have preferred to do it myself) and therefore iCloud services were disabled by default. Furthermore, this clearly illustrates why an additional mechanism would be beneficial. It's also very easy for someone to disable Find My Phone - that's actually not a very good security mechanism at all.

wjosten wrote:

Ain't gonna ever happen...for the same reasons that GM won't help you find a stolen car...nor GE a stolen toaster or Samsung a stolen TV. These guys are NOT the police & don't want to have anything to do with this stuff. You can keep barking, but your bark will fall on deaf ears.

Many GM cars come with OnStar which can help locate or disable a stolen vehicle. A toaster and TV are not communications devices and are not as easily misplaced and stolen like a cell phone. They also aren't as readily trackable like a cell phone. Furthermore, you have home insurance to cover such a loss.

Why couldn't Apple offer a similar additional service as part of MobileMe or other such offering? This is analogous to what GM does with OnStar. GM ships their vehicles with the components necessary for OnStar (control module, etc) to work and OnStar provides the customer interface and implementation of the service.

With that said, if you actually read my post, I did locate my phone using a similar feature provided by the Find My Friends app.

Julian Wright wrote:

Apple clearly already added a few features to help a customer recover their phone

If you had read any of the documentation Apple provides about the "Find my iPhone" feature, you would see that Apple never states the word "stolen". They always state "lost". It will help you locate a lost iPhone.

As soon as it becomes a stolen phone, that is a criminal matter and therefore legally not Apple's job to help recover it.

Regardless, you hadn't set the feature up in a whole month, so it wouldn't have been any help to you anyway...

Since Apple doesn't offer a service to assist in the recovery of a stolen phone I wouldn't expect them to use the word "stolen" in any of their literature regarding locating services.

I completely agree that a stolen phone is a matter for the police but that doesn't mean Apple can't provide assistance to the authorities upon request; whether a court order is required or not is not the question here. With regards to privacy legislation, again we are in agreement. As a software developer in a field where privacy impact assessments and conformance to existing federal legislation is mandated, I know all too well what is allowed to be tracked and what is considered a violation of a privacy. I also get to see first hand how inadequate some of the existing security systems and policies are. I completely agree that Apple tracking someone's private IP and NIC MAC, machine name, etc might cross the line, they are already tracking serial numbers, search history, and external IP addresses when a person connects through iTunes. This information can be subpoenaed by the authorties. All I'm suggesting is to make this process easier.

I'm not suggesting that Apple start kicking down doors but they could easily work more closely with the authorities to offer enhanced recovery services for stolen phones, even if offered at a price. Just because it hasn't been done before doesn't mean that it can't or shouldn't be done. Now that I know how easy it is for a phone to go missing, I'd gladly pay for the reassurance that some shady opportunist isn't able to benefit from my misfortune and hard work. Judging by posts on the net about this subject, I know I'm not alone.

No great company has ever succeeded by maintaining status quo. Apple (and cell providers) could really do something to help address a fairly large issue with minimal cost and risk.

stevejobsfan0123 wrote:

I don't see how you did not know about this feature. When setting up an iPhone 4S, one of the menus says WOULD YOU LIKE TO SET UP FIND MY iPHONE, for which you would have to say NO to in order to not have it set up. But it is impossible for you not to know about it.

As I clearly stated in my last post, when I purchased the phone, the salesperson behind the counter is the one who did the setup. They installed the SIM card, went through the initial setup, and then handed me the phone. Since I wasn't aware of the feature and never really had the need for something like that (at least in the past), I thought nothing of it.

Obviously, with my new phone, the first thing I did was do the initial setup myself, associate my account with/enable iCloud, enable the appropriate feature, and put in a passcode.

stevejobsfan0123 wrote:

I'm not even sure exactly what you expect to get out of this forum. You have already located your device and know where it is at. What more do you need from Apple?

What does anyone expect out of a forum? It's a place to vent and discuss topics. While I located my device, the police said they can't do anything unless I have a particular house number. I did the leg work to get this information, plus the suspected person's name, etc and updated my incident report with this information. Even still, the best the police can do is question the person and hopefully make them nervous enough to give up the phone.

Unless they had a way to catch the person redhanded, such as attempting to re-register the phone or make use of its features, there is not much they can do. If they had a better mechanism and better support from cell providers and manufacturers, locating stolen phones would become just that little bit easier.

I don't expect my phone to be recovered (and have already replaced it with another 4S) but it's cathartic to discuss my misfortune and thoughts on the situation.

stevejobsfan0123 wrote:

I find that hard to beleive, that you would let an Apple employee set up your phone for you without watching them... how would THEY know if you want iCloud, location services or Find my iPhone. EVERY new device I get from Apple, they always have me set it up, but they are there watching me if I need assistance.

Believe whatever you want, that is how it is done here where I live. When I went to buy my second phone, I had to do it at another location as well due to availability and the salesperson did the exact same thing. They set my phone up, connected it to their system with the dongle, did some typing, put the phone back in the box and sent me on my way. This time I paid attention and had them enable the services I wanted enabled and entered my account credentials. I'm not sure why they need to go through that process themselves or if they feel it is just a convenience feature.

I'm not big into phones so I don't really follow all the latest and greatest, typical setup procedures, etc. My last phone was a crappy Samsung flip phone that I had for 5 years. I wanted a 4S because we'd bought my wife a 4 last year and I wanted to start looking into the lucrative AppStore marketplace (since I'm a developer, it peaked my interest as a hobby.)

Personally, I didn't see it as a big deal at the time since you can modify whatever they setup that you don't like after you get the phone. My mistake the first time; didn't make it the second time.

modular747 wrote:

Activating iCloud and enabling Find My Phone are one of the early steps shown on the phone setup menu when you activated your new iPhone 4S. Claiming that you're a noobie who wasn't "familiar" with the features is nonsense - you can't avoid the choice to activate it and YOU CHOSE NOT.

Well, with all due respect you need to read before you post. I've stated twice now that the sales persons went through the initial setup BOTH times, for the stolen phone and the replacement. I don't know why and I didn't ask because it didn't seem important at the time. The second time I did pay attention and took my phone from him during setup so that I could enable the necessary services and enter my credentials.

So clearly, with this being my first iPhone, I was not familiar with the initial setup process or the new features available in the newer iOS.

modular747 wrote:

Life's full of personal responsibilities. You are the type who has an overt-inflated self-entitlement, believing others have to take up the slack of your irresponsibility. Not going to happen, no matter how much you whine and snivel.

Why are you resorting to (ineffective) personal attacks? Are you that immature and small-minded? If you can't participate in a mature, intelligent discussion, then don't bother. Go play with your building blocks or something; this thread is for adults.

I have not demonstrated any sense of self-entitlement in my posts and I'm certainly not whining and snivelling. I was curious whether Apple had enhanced services for this sort of situation. If you can't see how offering improved services to customers for a seemingly common situation, then you're just being obtuse. I have never once said that it isn't my fault for carelessly losing the phone out of my pocket or for not enabling Find My Phone (even though I effectively did this with the other app.) My point, which you failed to comprehend, is that the police and legitimate customers could benefit for enhanced location services. It's really not that hard to understand.

iPhone_Warrior wrote:

Apple will provide the information needed... BUT they will need a court order to do so. It seems that your local police are not willing to pursue the issue.

It is your property and you have the right to have it returned to you, even if you have replaced it.

Start going up the chain of your local police and have them get a judge to issue a court order and then have it sent to Apple, or even better the carrier it is locked to. The IMEI# of your phone will show when the 'person' who has it puts his sim into it.

That's all that can be done at this point.

Good luck.

Thank you. It's nice to see that there are a few people here who can contribute something intelligent to a conversation.

I'm pretty impressed with how helpful the police have been in this matter and at first wasn't going to report it because I know they have much more important things to deal with than a phone. It was Bell that suggested I open an incident report and pursue the matter with the authorities. Unfortunately, the police are fairly limited in what they can do. It's not like they can strong-arm the guy because, however unlikely, he might not have taken it in the first place and I certainly wouldn't want to be mistreated if I'm innocent of a crime.

As you said, the police would have to get a court order but that seems to be a lot of effort for something valued at "only" $800. If there were a better system in place to enable more efficient notification and alerting of a stolen phone's activity, it might make their job a little bit easier, more efficient, and potentially less costly to the taxer payer. It's shocking that some people here can't see the benefit to improved services.