Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

iPhone remains findable after power off

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 336 posts

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#161

Post by 6nf »

mr_toad wrote: post #158
wlesieutre wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "slide to power off" prompt literally says "iPhone Findable after Power Off >" right under it every time, but 99% of users will never see it or care about this feature because no one ever turns their phone off. But if you're one of those few people who does turn the phone off, it says right there, and you can tap on it to shut down to unfindable state this time instead. Note that it requires a passcode to disable…

> no one ever turns their phone off Sometimes turning it off and on again is the only way to get wi-fi syncing to work.

Changing my iPhone to airplane mode for a few seconds always seems to work for me

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#162

Post by karaterobot »

chewmieser wrote: post #8

Apple is very clear that this is how things work now. They even give you a dialog prompt now to inform you of this change the first time you try to shut your device off - https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/07/ios-15-find-my-network-can-fi... I'm not sure why this is presented as some new thing, or a gotcha or whatever this is. We've known about it for months... And IMO, it's a positive change although it does sound a little…

Data point: I'm an iphone user of average intelligence and attention span (you'll have to take my word for it), and I'm sure I saw this dialog. But if you'd asked me five minutes ago whether my iphone was findable when it was powered off, I'd have said "of course not, that's what being powered off means". So, either it's my fault for not having an eidetic memory about system dialogs I saw 11 months ago, or it's not a great design.

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#163

Post by wizzwizz4 »

AndrewThrowaway wrote: post #6
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.

Off should mean off. Sleeping means that it can be woken up, woken up means that it microphones can be turned on and etc.

You should be able to turn off the screen without putting it in sleep mode, but it should still display the microphone light.

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#164

Post by david_allison »

rurp wrote: post #126
AniseAbyss wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The police in my country wouldn't even bother to check, they have rapists and drug dealers to deal with.

Yeah I'm baffled by all of the comments saying that this is great as an anti-theft feature. I don't know where people live that that's the case, but I sure as heck have never known police in the US to give a damn about $1000 property crimes. They don't care about $20000 home robberies and car thefts, even with strong video or other evidence. I can't imagine they're going to start chasing down criminals to get a used…

In my country, the police came to my house when I dropped my wallet.

I strongly believe "Find My iPhone" has made iPhones significantly less valuable on the resale market and will have reduced thefts

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#166

Post by kelnos »

rurp wrote: post #126
AniseAbyss wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The police in my country wouldn't even bother to check, they have rapists and drug dealers to deal with.

Yeah I'm baffled by all of the comments saying that this is great as an anti-theft feature. I don't know where people live that that's the case, but I sure as heck have never known police in the US to give a damn about $1000 property crimes. They don't care about $20000 home robberies and car thefts, even with strong video or other evidence. I can't imagine they're going to start chasing down criminals to get a used…

I was visiting a friend in Switzerland a few years ago, and her bag got stolen right off the back of her chair while we were in a restaurant. (The guy was quick and sneaky; by the time I ran out to the street, he was gone.)

The restaurant manager called the police, and over the next 15 minutes we learned that the thief went on to try to rob the wrong person at another restaurant a couple blocks away. The intended victim held the guy down until the police arrived. The restaurant manager led us over to the other restaurant.

The police managed to recover nearly everything that was stolen, by going through the guy's pockets, and also doing a search in a nearby alleyway, where he had dumped my friend's bag and some of the less-concealable items he'd stolen from people. One thing (can't remember what) was still missing from my friend's bag, and the police took down information about it and told her who to contact to follow up in case it was found.

It was easily the best experience I've ever had with police anywhere (I live in the US but travel fairly frequently). I wish all police could be like that. (Granted, this was just a single experience with two specific officers; who knows if the rest in their precinct or even country are on average that good. But it was definitely encouraging.)

I recount this to suggest that in places with police that don't suck, maybe this sort of thing could actually be a decent anti-theft feature. But agreed that police in the US don't care. I was once mugged and had $3000 worth of stuff stolen from me (laptop and two phones), and the police clearly filed my report to /dev/null. Another friend of mine had her iPad stolen once, and she ended up tracking it down on her own (not the safest thing she's done) because the police told here there was "nothing they could do" even though she showed them the tracking information.

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#167

Post by llsf »

vorpalhex wrote: post #66
NineStarPoint wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”.

Ideally yes. However, people need to communicate and coordinate. Even arranging transportation may be an issue without a phone.

Sure, but if you really want to, you can communicate and coordinate. I know it might sound old and all, but before the mobile phones and pagers, people managed to communicate and coordinate. Admittedly it is not as easy, but it is possible.

It might actually be a good thing to try, and to step back without a mobile phone and unclutter our current model of communication and coordination. It would likely involve more commitments (e.g. "we said that we would meet at that space and time") and less distraction.

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#168

Post by Fnoord »

sparker72678 wrote: post #140
rurp wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm baffled by all of the comments saying that this is great as an anti-theft feature. I don't know where people live that that's the case, but I sure as heck have never known police in the US to give a damn about $1000 property crimes. They don't care about $20000 home robberies and car thefts, even with strong video or other evidence. I can't imagine they're going to start chasing down criminals to get a used…

It serves as anti-theft insofar as it makes it more of a pain generally to be in possession of a stolen phone. But yeah the police are not going to go get your iPhone back for you.

Lets not generalize, shall we? Police here in The Netherlands take care of stolen bikes. Its just a low success rate which skews our perception.

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#169

Post by jdavis703 »

karaterobot wrote: post #162
chewmieser wrote: post #8

Apple is very clear that this is how things work now. They even give you a dialog prompt now to inform you of this change the first time you try to shut your device off - https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/07/ios-15-find-my-network-can-fi... I'm not sure why this is presented as some new thing, or a gotcha or whatever this is. We've known about it for months... And IMO, it's a positive change although it does sound a little…

Data point: I'm an iphone user of average intelligence and attention span (you'll have to take my word for it), and I'm sure I saw this dialog. But if you'd asked me five minutes ago whether my iphone was findable when it was powered off, I'd have said "of course not, that's what being powered off means". So, either it's my fault for not having an eidetic memory about system dialogs I saw 11 months ago, or it's not a…

But whenever you go to the power down mode a warning about offline location is displayed. There’s no need for an eidetic memory.

Re: iPhone remains findable after power off

#170

Post by karaterobot »

jdavis703 wrote: post #169
karaterobot wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data point: I'm an iphone user of average intelligence and attention span (you'll have to take my word for it), and I'm sure I saw this dialog. But if you'd asked me five minutes ago whether my iphone was findable when it was powered off, I'd have said "of course not, that's what being powered off means". So, either it's my fault for not having an eidetic memory about system dialogs I saw 11 months ago, or it's not a…

But whenever you go to the power down mode a warning about offline location is displayed. There’s no need for an eidetic memory.

If that was a trick, it worked. No dialog though.
Post reply on HN