Early morning car thieves busted by AirPods & Find My

A New Hampshire man found out the hard way that warming up a car and leaving it unlocked is a bad idea — but Apple's AirPods and Find My helped police track it down.

Two people were arrested on Sunday by police in Weare, New Hampshire, suspected of stealing a car from a home in Concord on Friday. The vehicle, owned by Mike McCormack, was left warming up, and was taken when he ran into the house to pick up a water bottle.

However, the car was found just two days later, because McCormack had left his AirPods inside the car at the time it was taken, reports WMUR.

"I left the gym with my girlfriend and decided to check the Find My [app] on my iPhone," McCormack told the report. "And my AirPods just - they popped up and said they found a location on East Road in Weare, New Hampshire, and I was like Let's get them right now."

Weare police advised they were told about the stolen car by Concord police on Sunday, which led to an attempt to pick up the vehicle. Police say the car reached a dead end and its occupants ran into the woods to escape, however one home surveillance video showed a person running, pursued by a police cruiser.

Concord residents Frederick Estes and Anna Heine were arrested and face several charges for their involvement.

As well as reminding people to lock their unattended vehicles, Officer Laura Purslow of Weare Police Department thanked "helpful citizens" who were able to give descriptions of the fleeing suspects and where they went.

Find My has repeatedly been used in attempts to fight crime, and to some considerable success.

In June, AirTags helped the owner of a Range Rover in Canada recover their vehicle, while in February, Find My was used to track a housekeeper of former NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg who was kidnapped.

After one May robbery, Formula 1 driver Sebastian Vettel chased after thieves, again using Find My to keep tabs of his AirPods.

AirPods have also been used to track the movements of Russian forces in the Ukraine.

3 Comments

Bart Y 73 comments · 6 Years

About 1 year ago

JP234 said:

Talk about a double-edged sword. Apple Insider will showcase the beneficial capabilities of Find My. But there exists a much darker use for Find My. Numerous people have been stalked and/or attacked by offenders using AirTags since they were introduced.

It's getting more and more difficult for me to parse the benefit/cost ratio of modern electronics. Smart Phones are great multipurpose devices, but have caused literally thousands of injuries and deaths from misuse by motorists, and even pedestrians and cyclists unaware of their surroundings and walking into open manholes, or finding themselves someplace they shouldn't be. Add in the detrimental effects of the disinformation, racism, homophobia, xenophobia and anti-democracy messages abounding on social media platforms, and the benefit/cost ration is looking less and less balanced toward the benefit side.

Humans are extremely good at taking tools intended for good and misusing them for all manner of bad, misleading, or even dangerous behaviors. If humans decide to pay more attention to their devices than the normal task of walking, cycling or driving, that’s on them, not the device, unless you are advocating for the device to sense and become less or inoperative if in motion, which isn’t necessarily a bad idea.

As for Social media, I don’t disagree, but mobile devices have followed the immobile computer in providing more convenient access. Mobile devices did not create the opinions, words and thoughts of the people using it. As it was with the first printed pamphlets, town criers, newspapers and books, dissemination of ideas and thoughts used the mediums of the day, it’s whether an educated (and I use that term loosely) public or electorate is capable of doing critical thinking that is the problem, not the devices themselves. For sure, amplification of ideas occurs more rapidly with modern electronics, but again, it’s the people doing it and allowing it to be done to them.

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