Can't Apple track stolen iPhones via serial #

Apple does not do anything at all about people’s lost or stolen personal property. No consumer electronics company does. That is simply not something they involve themselves in as it is a matter for law enforcement, not consumer retail companies.

If you had find my iPhone enabled on it, and as long as you leave that device in your iCloud list of tracked and trusted devices, it is useless to any thief. Activation lock will prevent anyone (who doesn’t know your AppleID password) from ever activating and using that device themselves.

Activation lock is Apple’s anti-theft feature.

Find My iPhone Activation Lock - Apple Support

p.s. If you receive any email, text or other contact from someone claiming to have found your device, ignore them. They are phishing scams. Apple does not take reports of lost or stolen devices, they do not search for, track, monitor or anything else about such items. They will never contact anyone about their lost or stolen device since they literally know nothing about that.

Do not fall victim and give out your AppleID password to one of these “your device has been found” scams.

No. The only way to track it via Apple is using Find My iPhone. If you can't track it that way, then you can't track it.

Cellular carriers can track and locate any device on their network using the IMEI. That requires a court order to do, however. You'll have to work with the police.

Apple is not a law enforcement agency. There are numerous legal issues with them tracking devices other than via FMiP, which they have provided so that you can track your own device.

If you are signed into iCloud on a device and Find My iPhone has been enabled on that device, the device is "activation locked". That means that if someone forcibly erases it (using recovery or DFU mode) it will not be possible to activate the device at all without the credentials used to sign into iCloud on that device.

If you erase it, it will be unusable by whoever has it so long as you do NOT remove it from FMiP in your iCloud account.

Fctrwriter wrote:

I've always enabled Find My iPhone. So, my question is - Is the Activation Lock the same as "find my location" that you speak of? It doesn't make sense to me what you shared as I didn't want my personal credit card, passwords, etc. made known so I elected to "erase all data", which shows the phone can no longer be tracked now even if it shows up on my list of iCloud devices.

Erasing it does remove the ability to remotely track it. But, as long as you keep it listed in your iCloud account, activation lock remains in effect. So if someone now tries to activate and set it up, they cannot. They cannot get past the activation screen to use it since they don’t have your AppleID password.

Apple’s activation process ensures you cannot complete setup of an activation locked iOS device unless you have that password. Activation lock is initially enabled when you setup find my iPhone on your device, but it links specific hardware IDs of that device to your AppleID. So that connection of your hardware to your AppleID remains even if the device contents are erased.

Your welcome. I think you took best advantage of the tools. By remote erasing your device, while you’ve lost the ability to remote track it, you have also ensured none of your private information can be compromised. And by leaving it in your iCloud listed/trusted devices, you’ve ensured nobody else can ever use it.

It‘s never nice to lose your device to a thief, but they cannot now profit from it, neither from using the device nor from gaining access to your personal data.