You’re having “one of those days” in which you are rushing from one thing to another and barely have time to think. At some point in the day, you reach for your cell phone and it’s not there!
Panic ensues. Did you in your haste to get out the door in the morning simply leave the phone at home? Is it sitting in your car attached to the charger? Did you put it down at one of your stops and forget to take it? Did you drop it somewhere? Most important is it simply lost or has someone walked away with it?
Apple just created a solution as part of its recent iPhone 3.0 software update: “Find My iPhone and Remote Wipe.”
It does just what the name says: it will locate your iPhone and if necessary wipe all your private data from it. It also allows you to send a message to your iPhone that will cause the unit to sound an alert and flash the message (typically you would use it to provide information on how to return it to you).
The service works via Apple’s MobileMe Internet network and uses the iPhone’s built-in GPS capabilities. Aside from its practical values, it also has great show-off capabilities because the process is highly entertaining.
Users log into their MobileMe website, navigate to account settings (as an extra security measure, they will be required to supply their passwords a second time), and then click on the Find My iPhone button. That brings up a Google map in which a circle shows the phone’s location. Apple refines the GPS data so the experience is that one usually sees the circle centered somewhere in the general vicinity of where the phone might be; then the circle nudges itself into a more exact position.
When I tested this from my home, which is near the Charles River, the first data placed the phone on the other side of the river. Then the refined information slowly moves the location across the river, then moved through some adjacent property, and finally although not pinpointing my exact apartment does center on the building’s front door – which is close enough for me. In fact, any closer and I would start to worry about Apple taking the microtargeting concept to grave extremes.
Curiously Find My iPhone was little publicized in reviews of the 3.0 software update and latest generation of iPhones. Perhaps this is because the MobileMe service cost $99 per year and had major glitches when it was launched a year ago. But many of the new features that got more attention, such as cut-and-paste text capabilities or video cameras on the new iPhone 3GS aren’t especially innovative. BlackBerries and other smartphones have had those features for years.
Find my iPhone is an important innovation, one that will become even more important as people and companies fully appreciate how much sensitive data we actually carry around with us on today’s cell phones. I expect this to be a trend setter and the odds are high that other cellphone makers and cellular service provides aren’t even now as we speak kicking themselves for having failed to think of it first.
Expect MobileMe to be challenged quickly by Me, Too.
