Apple to give away iPhone tracking tech
Find My iPhone goes free as iOS 4.2 released
Apple is to open its Find My iPhone tracking tech to certain iDevice owners who aren't Mobile Me subscribers.
The news was made public as the company gears up to release iOS 4.2.1, which it said will go live later today.
The Find My... facility has to date been part of the Mobile Me, Apple's £59-a-year email and device data syncing service. Find My... allows you to locate your device - assuming, of course, it's connected to the internet - and, if necessary, wipe or lock it remotely.
Anyone who owns an iPhone 4, iPad or fourth-generation iPod Touch can now make use of the service by downloading a free app to a second iDevice, Apple said.
Of course, that's as useful as tits on a bull if you only have one of these iDevices, so we hope Apple will also make the service accessible through the web, as MobileMe is.
iOS 4.2.1, meanwhile, brings the iPad into operarting system parity with other iDevices, and implements both AirPrint - Apple's universal wireless printing tech - and AirPlay, its revamped media streaming system. ®
COMMENTS
Excellent
Now hopefully Google will decide to allow remote locking/tracking of Android handsets for consumers, not just business users, in Android and I can remove WaveSecure (which I got free, but refuse to recommend as I think the subscription is extortionate for what it is).
Title
You only need an iPhone 4, iPad or 4rd gen iPod touch to setup an AppleID to use Find My iPhone (if you don't already have an Apple ID).
Once you have an Apple ID, you can use Find my iPhone on any device running iOS 4.2.
See the small print at: http://www.apple.com/iphone/find-my-iphone-setup/
The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.
The sensible thing would be a IPP client, so any Samba/CUPS server in the world would work with it out the box. Shall we take bets :-)
"....Apple's universal wireless printing tech..."
Is that "universal" in the same way that telco data plans are "unlimited"?
I.e. "universal" for a given universe, which may contain rather less than any other universes you may have previously experienced.
works on the iPhone 3GS AND on the website
Just tested this on my iDevices. You activate your non-me.com account via the Find My iPhone app. Accessing the app I successfuly located my iPad AND iPhone 3GS with 4.2.1, despite claiming only to work on iPhone 4. Very nice!
Quote - Of course, that's as useful as tits on a bull if you only have one of these iDevices, so we hope Apple will also make the service accessible through the web, as MobileMe is.
You can actually log into www.me.com with your iTunes login and can track your devices (both iPhone and iPad in my case) on the website, no iDevices needed. Fully tested. Very nice again!
A very rare halo Steve Jobs icon presented!
