Thwarting my laptop thief
My MacBook Air and my iPad were stolen two weeks ago. I have both devices set up in the Find My iPhone app, and after finding them gone, I selected to lock them if they connect to the internet along with a message that says the device was stolen. On Tuesday I received an email telling me the MacBook was locked – no location or anything else. Then on Wednesday I received another email, this time telling me the MacBook had been located and this showed the location on a map: not much use, however, since it was in Lithuania. I contacted our local police, but they had no idea what to do; I’m still waiting for them to get back to me. If the message says the device has been found, does that mean it’s been unlocked and somebody is able to use it? Also, is there any way of erasing the device? Tony Smith Find My iPhone (or iPad, or Mac) uses Wi-Fi to determine the approximate location of your device. So long as the device is connected to the internet through Wi-Fi, it shows up on the map at www.icloud.com/#find. You can click the dot on the map and get a window with the option to play a sound or display a message on the device, lock it or securely erase it. Once it’s locked, it stays locked until someone enters the passcode on that device. If the device isn’t connected to the internet at the time that you send the lock instruction, it won’t happen until the next time the device connects. (That connection has to be over Wi-Fi. A thief could still use your laptop if they connected using an Ethernet cable. Although that’s not likely to be a problem in your case, since the Air doesn’t have an Ethernet port.) The email telling you the device has been found means it has connected to the internet and been locked. You can still click the erase option at icloud. com even after it’s been locked, although your Air needs to connect to the internet to receive this instruction, which the thief is unlikely to do now it’s locked.
Find My iPhone is useful for tracking, but it doesn’t mean you’ll get your device back. A GPS location isn’t considered enough in the UK to justify a search warrant. So if the police knock on the thief’s door and nobody answers, they
can’t force entry.