Lost And Found – Apps For Tracking Down Misplaced IPhones. You reach in your pocket for your iPhone so that you can check your email or send a text, but your fingers feel nothing but fabric. A shiver of panic runs through you. Where has it gone? Did you leave it on the table in the restaurant? Has it fallen into the couch cushions? Did someone steal it?
Losing your iPhone can be a stressful experience, especially since this device is so valuable and so important to our daily lives. Not only will you have lost your phone, but you will also be missing value data, photos, music, apps and contacts. This will mean that you have to start collecting this information from scratch and it also means that your identity could be compromised with the amount of personal information on the device.
However, there are several apps available that promise to be able to track down an iPhone so that you can recover it. These apps claim to be able to track your phone, lock up your data from afar and sound a remote alarm. They won’t guarantee that you will be able to catch the thief or find your misplaced phone, but they will make it much easier to figure out what happened to it and give the best chance possible of locating your device.
Here are a few examples of iPhone recovery apps and how they work:
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Find My iPhone
This is an app that will allow you to use another iOS device to find your missing iPhone. You will be able to locate the phone on a map, display a message on the screen, play a sound at full volume even if you had the phone on silent and remotely lock the device so no one can access your information.
In order to use this app, your phone should be upgraded to iOS 5 or above and you will need to register for an iCloud account. If your phone is online, the app will show the location of the lost or stolen phone on a map. If the phone is offline, you will be able to receive an email when someone connects it to the internet.
Gadget Trak
This app even allows you to improve your chances of finding your iPhone by snapping a photo of whomever has it. It sends a discreet message to the device in the form of a “meeting reminder” and when the thief presses the dismiss button the app will take a photo of them. This app has a small fee, but it is a good quality security app and a great way to catch the thief in action.
GadgetTrak will also allow you to track the location of the phone on a map so that you will be able to track it down.
iHound
The iHound app is designed by SafetyWeb and it can be used on both iPhone and Android phones. It can be installed on all of your devices and then managed from the Web-based Security Dashboard on your browser. Like the other apps, iHound will use the GPS tracking software in your phone to pinpoint its location on a map.
It is also possible to make your iPhone play a noise, such as a siren, a car alarm sound or a voice shouting, “Stop! This is iHound!” This will catch out a thief who thinks that they can just walk off with your phone in a public place without anyone noticing.
Losing your iPhone can be a truly annoying and stressful experience, but with these tracking , security and recovery Apps you will have a better chance of being reunited with your precious device again.
Jann Webb is a freelance writer and blogger. She once lost her iPhone when it fell out of her pocket in a busy car park. She was able to use a recovery app to find it. The screen was broken when she recovered it, but with the help of a specialist iPhone repair company it is now functioning again.