iPhone is the world’s best smart phone available today without any doubt. People carry their phones everywhere they go, and hence there is always a chance of them forgetting their iPhone somewhere or the iPhone getting stolen. Learn how to track, message, erase and recover your lost or stolen iPhone.
Also read: 4 Ways to Track and Recover your Stolen Laptop
Track or Locate your iPhone
1. Track your iPhone via MobileMe
Apple has announced a new service called Find My iPhone that will allow iPhone owners to remotely locate their lost or stolen iPhones using the iPhone’s GPS. The service will be available as part of Apple’s MobileMe online subscription service.
Find My iPhone will pinpoint the iPhone’s current location using Google Maps and let owners send and display a message on the iPhone even if it’s locked, presumably to provide information on how to return the phone to the finder of the phone. The Find My iPhone feature can also force the iPhone to play a sound for 2 minutes, which is useful for not only getting the attention of the finder of iPhone but also locating it between couch cushions.
The Find My iPhone feature will require a subscription to Apple’s MobileMe service, which costs $99 a year (currently $65.99 on Amazon.com) after a free 2-month trial.
2. iPhone anti-theft solution – iLocalis
iLocalis lets you track your iPhone device location and also remote control it! It is considered as the best theft-tracking and remote control utility for Apple iPhone.
iLocalis has the following uses-
- Never lose you iPhone: If it is missing just log onto the iLocalis site and you’ll know where it was located last.
- Retrieve a stolen iPhone: If your iPhone is stolen you can log into the site and check out where it’s at. Extra features built into iLocalis allow you to send text messages or make calls on your iPhone when you don’t even have it with you. If you iPhone is stolen log in and send yourself a text message. If the thief changed the sim card you’ll have their phone number!
- Allow your family and friends to know where you are: iLocalis will send a message to your friends when you are near by. You can also set it up to allow your friends to locate you. If your friend also has iLocalis you can send messages to each other for free. No txt messaging charges.
- iLocalis can also be used for a business that needs location services for their employees. Employees carrying iPhones with iLocalis can be tracked via the web site easily.
Note: iLocalis needs a jailbroken iPhone with Cydia installed and supports all firmware versions on iPhone 3G and 3GS.
3. GPS tracking for iPhone with Mobile Spy 3.0
Mobile Spy version 3.0 spy software for Apple iPhone from Retina-X studios allows users to track GPS locations, SMS messages and calls of employees, teen or family mobile phones by logging into SSL secured online control panel from any computer or phone’s web browser.
Mobile Spy allows users to monitor their handsets in real time and runs in the background behind all other applications. After the spy software is setup on the cellphone, it will silently record SMS messages, GPS locations and call activities, and then upload the data to your private Mobile Spy secure online account.
The Mobile Spy version 3.0 software is compatible with all iPhone models, Windows Mobile or Symbian OS based smartphone and is priced at $99.97 (1-year subscription).
4. Find and Recover your Stolen iPhone with iHound
This free security program alerts you when your iphone is connected to another individual’s computer. It will also track down the location of where your device is being used.
When your missing iPhone is being plugged in to a computer, you will:
1. Get an email saying that your tracked device is being located.
2. Get a detailed report on where it is being used by logging in to iHound’s website.
The second method can be very useful when the stolen iPhone is switched off and later gets connected to a computer for changing software or formatting the memory card.
Download iHound for iPhone or iPod Touch
5. Recover your Lost/Stolen iPhone with Navizon app
Navizon is a hybrid positioning system combining GPS, Wi-Fi and Cellular triangulation techniques. It calculates the geographic location of a wireless device by analyzing the signals from nearby Wi-Fi access points and cellular towers and comparing it against a database of known data points. A new option called Locate-by-SMS allows you to locate your lost iPhone by just sending an SMS text message to it.
6. MyFoundCast
MyFoundCast, a patent pending technology is the internet’s first lost and found service that allows you to create custom wallpaper and embed information into that wallpaper so when somebody finds your iPhone or iPod Touch they will know how to return it. All members are given a unique tracking ID and automatically registered in our lost and found database. You may register the serial number of any iPod or iPhone.
I am not sure if this really works. If someone is honest enough to return your iPhone he/she will do some basic research on the owner of the iPhone and return it back. Isn’t it?
You can try an app, ” find my phone”, I believe you can download it on a friends iphone or ipad. I think you have to sign up for a mobile me acct and use the trial. Read about it while trying to find a way to track Gf’s lost droid, which appears to be hopeless.
How do I protect my privacy when I do not want to be tracked down?
simple! Remove all such apps which directly or indirectly use GPS. You know how to remove apps from your iPhone, don’t you?
iHound is not free!!
is there a way to track your stole phone without these apps?
Yes, subscribe to mobile me.
Same question, I lost my phone today and want to track it but did not install any of these programs, any solution?
Unfortunately there isn’t any
iLocalis is very good,seems to be free!
There’s also cerebro