Your iPhone just might have all of your day-to-day activities planned, emails stored and pictures saved, but what happens when you lose your precious iPhone? You go crazy and start asking friends and family if they have seen it, right? Well, Apple has a feature on your iPhone that will help you track it down should it get lost or stolen and a new feature added recently has Apple looking to patent the feature. The new feature will allow a user to remotely access the iPhone to turn on the camera and microphone in order to hear where the phone might be.
Another feature that would be perfect should the iPhone be stolen, instead of lost, is the addition of lockable files and apps. That way a user can scramble their files, or lock out the apps, and a thief will not have access to them. If, and when, the user gets their iPhone back, the files can be unscrambled and the apps unlocked. The original “Find my iPhone” feature was a paid service, but is now offered up free if you have any Apple iPhone 4, iPad or fourth generation iPod Touch.
The new feature will also include a message to the person who found, or stole it, that reads the iPhone is being pinged for location. The person can then enter the right password to stop the request, or contact the owner to return the phone. Apple products are a hot commodity so any type of service like this that allows a user to recover what was lost or stolen is very valuable. This patent could also help Apple compete with Android devices over the long term.
