Prince McLean
The setting appears under the MobileMe settings page, where push updates for mail, contacts, calendars, and bookmarks are configured. Below these settings is a simple control to activate "Find My iPhone."
When activated, the phone opens an alert that says, "this enables the "Find my iPhone" service on your MobileMe account at me.com." It would appear that the service obtains the iPhone's location and makes it available to the MobileMe user on request if the unit is lost or stolen.
The rationale for linking the feature into MobileMe is evidently the same as that behind Apple's Back to My Mac feature: security. By only allowing the linked MobileMe account to obtain a location remotely, using GPS or WiFi/cell tower triangulation, users don't have to worry about an outside party being able to track their location.
MobileMe supports setting up secure IPSec tunnels between remote clients over the Internet, acting as a catalyst by tracking the locations of MobileMe-registered systems and securely publishing their location to other MobileMe-registered devices using Wide Area Bonjour.
In this case, the iPhone would simply give its registered MobileMe user the option of remotely requesting its location. The settings to support the new feature are not yet visible on the MobileMe website, as the iPhone 3.0 firmware is currently still in developer release and won't ship until this summer.
William Gallagher
Malcolm Owen
Wesley Hilliard
Amber Neely
Thomas Sibilly
Marko Zivkovic
62 Comments
Does this mean I can track ANY iPhone attached to my Mobile me account. Such as family members phones?
Such as, my daughter is supposed to be at school but someone called and said she was at the mall or at someone's house she isn't supposed to be at. Would I be able to find out where she is at?
This could also be good in emergencies.
When are Apple going to buy Cappuccino/Atlas? To add it to Mobile me, via iWeb online / iWork online. Clearly it's heading this direction, I hope behind the scenes they are working like dogs on this. Though Objective-J is clearly the key here, with possibly some Sproutcore action too (which they already bought).
Now - Apple - please: Your MobileMe is just great. Can't you put some effort into packing a business solution based on this? Then I would not need the rather crappy included mail from our ISP. We could share calendars, remote wipe iPhones, find lost ones and make colaboration services from out XServe available outside our company LAN.
For example.
That would be a good move in competition with Google and MSN offering universitys to handle mail for all students. Many companies goes cloud - and MobileMe has all the basics - and more. Just need a company packing. We would be there!
Useful yes, scary as hell too. Of course there's the whole " If you're not doing anything wrong, there's nothing to fear" argument... some people just don't care too much for tracking others or being tracked outside of 911 emergency situations.
When are Apple going to buy Cappuccino/Atlas? To add it to Mobile me, via iWeb online / iWork online. Clearly it's heading this direction, I hope behind the scenes they are working like dogs on this. Though Objective-J is clearly the key here, with possibly some Sproutcore action too (which they already bought).
I'm not sure what that has to do with the feature mentioned in the article, but I agree that a web-based suite of iWork apps as part of MobileMe would rock!