iPhone / iPad Find My Phone Finally Free!

Apple just released the latest version of the iOS, which powers iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch devices. This new operating system (iOS 4.2) offers a number of useful enhancements, but I’m most excited that the “Find My iPhone” service is now FREE for iPhone 4, iPad, and iPod Touch 4 users (this service previously required a MobileMe account for $99 a year).

MobileMe Find My iPhone
Photo Source: Apple

For those of you who are unfamiliar with MobileMe, it’s a service Apple sells to help you keep your data synchronized between devices. We use Google’s Gmail for our contacts and email, and they support an iPhone Exchange configuration which keeps everything synched, so we haven’t been interested in purchasing MobileMe service. Back in August, when our shiny new iPhone was left on an airplane and stolen, we were wishing we had MobileMe for the “Find My iPhone” service.

Find My iPhone uses cell phone or wifi triangulation to determine the approximate location of your phone (or iPad or iPod touch) and allows you to send a message to the device (offering a reward, for example), remotely lock it, remotely add a passcode lock, and remotely wipe the data. Two important caveats to the service: first, the device must be powered on to report its location, in our case whoever found the phone promptly turned it off and then probably pulled the SIM card out to keep it from connecting to the network. Second, you need to either log into the MobileMe website from a computer or use the “Find My iPhone” app from another device in order to access the location, send a message, or wipe the device. In our case, the iPhone was our only device, but we could have used a laptop to access the MobileMe website.

Check out Apple’s video, featuring a lost and found iPhone HERE.

We plan to upgrade to the new iOS 4.2 as soon as we return home from our travels. We’re very happy the “Find My iPhone” service is now FREE for iPhone4, iPad, and iPod Touch 4 users as this may help prevent others from experiencing the stress and difficulties of a lost or stolen iPhone.

Go to your iTunes account to download the new iOS 4.2, which is a free software upgrade from Apple.

Related Posts:
Lost and Stolen iPhone 4 – Our Story and What To Do If This Happens To You