Why must Cellular data be turned on to use Find my iPhone?

If the device is powered off at all you won't be able to track it. However, you will still be able to:

1. See its last location for 24 hours

2. Have its last location emailed to you

3. Generate a pending transaction to Lock it as soon as it is connected to any network (cellular or Wifi)

4. Generate a pending transaction to Erase it as soon as it is connected to any network

5. Know that the low life who stole it will never be able to use it if they try to restore it, and that they will have all sorts of problems if you change your Apple ID password

GB

Can what be fixed? For Find My iPhone to work, it needs to be connected to the internet, since that is how it communicates with the Apple servers, which is where you are tracking the device from. If there is no data connection, you cannot track the device. Understand, that Find My iPhone is not designed for tracking stolen devices, it is a method for you to track your lost device. If you have a passcode on the device, they cannot get into the Settings to turn off data, but they can turn the device off completely.

If you do not like the way this works, telling us here on a user to user support forum is not going to help. You would want to tell Apple how you feel and you do that on the feedback page HERE, and click on the appropriate subject.

Adding to all the good comments above:

Daru Stevens wrote:

But wifi and cellular data can be turned off by anyone.

A passcode would prevent that from ever occurring!

There's nothing broken to be fixed. The phone uses known wifi hotspots and cellular tower connections to triangulate a location, just like GPS. Without the ability to send that information the phone can't be found. If you lose the phone you use Find My Phone to lock it down and as soon as it comes back on line whoever has the phone can not use it as it just became a paper weight. That's all there is to it.

sberman wrote:

Adding to all the good comments above:

Daru Stevens wrote:

But wifi and cellular data can be turned off by anyone.

A passcode would prevent that from ever occurring!

Well, not wi-fi. You can disable/enable wi-fi via the Control Center form the lock screen. But you're correct about Cellular Data.

Daru Stevens wrote:

Thank you all for your information. We live up here in the mountains, rarely travel, so have neglected to use passcode, as suggested; not much chance of having our phones stolen. We'll reconsider passcodes... And keep cellular turned on.

You can leave the 'master switch' for cellular on under Settings > General, but then in the Cellular section, scroll down to disable it for your individual apps. You could leave only Find My iPhone cellular data usage on and have the rest turned off. That would be like having the main breaker in your house on, but all the breakers for all the rooms except your kitchen turned off. The only room that could use electricity would be the kitchen, for example.

Also, even with both wi-fi & cellular off, Find My iPhone still enables Activation Lock. If the last know status of the device by the Find My iPhone server was that it was turned on, and the device is an iOS 7 or greater device, then even with the data connection off, the Activation Lock would remain. And, Find My iPhone cannot be turned off without the Apple ID & password that was used to enable it.

TJBUSMC1973 wrote:

Well, not wi-fi. You can disable/enable wi-fi via the Control Center form the lock screen. But you're correct about Cellular Data.

Only if you have it set to be accessible from the Lock Screen in Settings>Control Center>Access on Lock Screen turned on. 🙂

Cheers,

GB

gail from maine wrote:

TJBUSMC1973 wrote:

Well, not wi-fi. You can disable/enable wi-fi via the Control Center form the lock screen. But you're correct about Cellular Data.

Only if you have it set to be accessible from the Lock Screen in Settings>Control Center>Access on Lock Screen turned on. 🙂

Cheers,

GB

Touché... although IIRC, that is the default setting, so unless it's been changed... 😉

Daru Stevens wrote:

Valuable info. I've now got Cellular on, and all the apps turned off. However, Find my iPhone was not listed. Didn't realize there was also an app for it, as well as the built-in feature. Downloaded it. But it still hasn't shown up in the list of apps in Cellular; can't turn it on.

This has been a valuable discussion. Glad I posted the original question...

Just to clarify, the Find My iPhone function under Settings > iCloud is different from the App of the same name. The App allows you to track another device, so that's why I like to keep it on for cellular. For the built-in function to work, I'm not sure if 'Use Cellular Data' for Settings needs to be enabled. I think FMiP will work regardless of that though, and will work via Cellular if the master switch is on, or will work through wi-fi if wi-fi is connected.

Hi

i have erased my phone; now i've found it.

when i connect it to itunes, itunes asks me to enter the pin code but the phone is locked. when i put a wifi conenction, there's a connection attempt but then have this message :

your iphone could not be activated because the activation server is temporarily unavailable. try connecting your phone to itunes to activate it or try againin a couple of minutes.

i've been trying many times!!!!

so i'm blocked through itunes and through wifi for icloud.

what can i do to reactivate my phone plzzzzz