One of the cool new features that have come out with iPhone OS 3.0 is called “Find my iPhone”, which (when the conditions are just right) does just that. The first conditional is that you must be using Apple’s MobileMe service. IThe main reason for using this service to date has been that it provides a nice way to sync data (calendar, contacts, etc…) between a number of computers (it gets pretty tricky if u have more than 2). I’ve been using it for several months now and while the service has had it’s share of teething problems, I’ve found it to be a lot better in recent times.
Find my iPhone - push disabled
Given that the service cost about $99 per year it probably isn’t something that most Apple users have gone out and purchased but now that the service is required for the Find my iPhone application to work it’s attractiveness has definitely increased.
Speaking of the Find my iPhone service, I came across this great article the other day about a happy user experience in the US. While I had a somewhat less amusing experience on the weekend, I thought I’d mention it as it may save other users some frustration. Here’s what happened:
Saturday night I was up the coast staying with relatives and catching up with my father who’s over here for a visit when my phone slipped out of my pocket and lodged in the arm chair that I was sitting in.
Find my iPhone
I was vaguely aware that the phone wasn’t with me when I went to bed that night but I suspected it wasn’t too far away and that I’d find it in the morning. Well, morning came and after what I can only call a surfing attempt (I clearly need more practice) and brunch with the fam by the beach, it was time to head home. I had to be back in Brisbane for basketball practice so we were under some time pressure. Isn’t that always the way when you’re trying to find car keys or a wallet/phone, etc…
We rushed around the house calling the phone for a couple minutes before I remembered the Find my iPhone service and I quickly found a wall plug to connect the laptop (of course the battery was low). You can imagine my disappointment when I loggged into MobileMe and found that the service wouldn’t work because “Push” wasn’t turned on for the phone. Dang, so much for that idea.
Find my iPhone - push disabled
The next half hour was spent, returning to the pub we’d been at the previous evening and stressing out while sending messages to the phone and trying to bribe whoever might have it to return it to us. I also tried the messaging tool that comes with the Find my iPhone service (which plays a sound for 2 minutes while a message is sent to the phone even if the phone is in silent mode).
As luck would have it the phone was being held not by some opportunistic bar tender but by the couch at my relatives place and I have it safely back in my posession now as I write this post.
After enabling Push on the phone (there’s a few steps involved, see below), I finally received the message I had sent to my phone some two days earlier. Odd, I would’ve thought that a message could be sent without push being turned on, but I am happy to report that the service now picks up my phone when I use it from the MobileMe website. Let’s just hope there’s plenty of battery life in my phone when it comes time to use the service next.
1.) Turn on Push for your phone (Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data)
Enable push
2.) ensure you have your MobileMe mail account setup on your iphone
3.) Enable the Find my iPhone service under the MobileMe email account
Turn on Find my iPhone
Click Allow