iPhone remains findable after power off • Hacker News Board

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#21

Post by madeofpalk » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 1:52 PM UTC

krageon wrote: post #3

AndrewStephens wrote: post #2

Umm, isn’t this, like maybe, a good thing? If I want my very expensive iPhone found, I want it found whether it is on or off. If people are worried about being tracked maybe they should carry around a device that is always broadcasting radio signals to third party towers.

Maybe you don't want to be tracked sometimes, and you expect turning off your device to turn it off.

> you expect turning off your device to turn it off.

When you turn your phone off there is a message that states:

    iPhone Findable After Power Off >

Tapping that shows an alert with a description:

    iPhone Remains Findable After Power Off
    
    Find my helps you locate this iPhone when it is lost or stolen, even after power off

    The location is visible in Find My on your other devices and to people in Family Sharing you share location with.

    You can temporarily turn off Find My network and it will resume when this iPhone is turned on again

    [OK] [Temporarily Turn Off Finding]

Seems very clear about setting expectations about exactly what your phone will be doing when you turn it "off".

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#22

Post by todd3834 » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 1:52 PM UTC

This article has me wondering if I’ve ever turned my phone off besides restarting it or the battery died. I’m sure I have but I bet it is very uncommon.

That being said, if it were off and lost, this feature would be amazing. Apple is very transparent about it and also allows you to disable it as far as I remember.

The OP has a follow up tweet that iOS 15 made their phone hot during charging. Kind of feels like they might just not be having a good time with their new iPhone or is trying a little too hard to capture some Apple outrage attention. There are better things in the ecosystem to complain about in my opinion but to each their own.

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#23

Post by vorpalhex » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 1:53 PM UTC

amimrroboto wrote: post #10

krageon wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you don't want to be tracked sometimes, and you expect turning off your device to turn it off.

What situation are you going, "I don't want big tech to be tracking me right now"?

What situation are you happy to let your location data be sold? Will you give the rest of us your location data?

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#24

Post by silicon2401 » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 1:53 PM UTC

lucideer wrote: post #5

krageon wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you don't want to be tracked sometimes, and you expect turning off your device to turn it off.

Exactly. For example, when you're a phone thief.

Think of the children!

A more reasonable, good-faith understanding would also account for people who don't want to be tracked. I keep GPS and any location tracking on with all my devices because I don't want them to have any more data on me than I can avoid.

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#25

Post by kosasbest » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 1:53 PM UTC

An iPhone Remains Findable After Power Off ... except when you put it in a Faraday bag when not using it

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#26

Post by NineStarPoint » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #20

lucideer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. For example, when you're a phone thief.

Or you're an activist attending a protest.

It’s almost strictly better to leave your phone home in that sort of circumstance though. Your phone looks like you stayed home all day, and you don’t need to worry about things like whether any information gets sent out despite being “off”.

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#27

Post by easton » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

calyth2018 wrote: post #9

Not exactly new. The old BlackBerries allows you to "turn off" the device and have the alarm wake you up. It basically drops into a low power mode. It was easy to make a phone dead. You yanked out the batteries.

The old BlackBerrys didn’t even do a full OS startup unless you did a battery pull, I think the “clean” shutdown just hibernated it at best.

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#28

Post by dawnerd » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

todd3834 wrote: post #22

This article has me wondering if I’ve ever turned my phone off besides restarting it or the battery died. I’m sure I have but I bet it is very uncommon. That being said, if it were off and lost, this feature would be amazing. Apple is very transparent about it and also allows you to disable it as far as I remember. The OP has a follow up tweet that iOS 15 made their phone hot during charging. Kind of feels like they…

The heat part is especially weird considering androids also go scorched earth when fast or wireless charging. It’s just got phones work currently. And their point about losing 15%, after an update all phones are going to do reinfecting. My Samsung flip drops battery like crazy when not doing anything too. Phones are one of those grass isn’t greener things.

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#29

Post by lucideer » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

silicon2401 wrote: post #24

lucideer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. For example, when you're a phone thief.

Think of the children! A more reasonable, good-faith understanding would also account for people who don't want to be tracked. I keep GPS and any location tracking on with all my devices because I don't want them to have any more data on me than I can avoid.

The original commenter was proposing that there's multiple perspectives. The replies were all completely ignoring this and adding nothing substantive to the discussion, so I thought a short jokey reply would suffice.

To be serious though: there's a lack of acknowledgement of the functional benefits of tracking by those advocating for control and privacy in this particular instance. The fact is as long as Apple's closed walled-garden is offering actual value to users (FindMyPhone works, and works well, for the common use-case most "consumers" experience day-to-day), while open alternatives are actively sticking their head in the sand around features like this, then closed solutions will prevail.

What's needed is proper discourse on the challenges of e.g. providing practical asset management features that bad actors cannot easily overcome, while at the same time ensuring full user control over their own device and privacy. This is a real world challenge without easy answers: "just turn it all off all the time" is an easy answer, and a cop-out.

If we want to provide quality solutions to e.g. activists, those solutions need to be mature and practical.

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#30

Post by jareklupinski » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

it definitely could have been worded better:

"You iPhone continues to report its location to Apple when it is powered off" or something

seems software has gone back to extremely hostile user-facing strings, after about a decade of "oopsie doopsie our system had a crashie"