Apple’s new ‘Find My Phone’ feature came in handy for an Austin man, after his iPhone was stolen as he attended a Lego Convention. If you think that Lego conventions are strange – wait until you read his story – the account of a lost iPhone guiding its master to its would-be thief.
In times of danger people have been known to exhibit extraordinary abilities. Among geeks attending a Lego convention, apparently an iPhone apparently pushes them to extraordinary bravery/stupidity as they track down their stolen device in a sketchy neighborhood using Apple’s Find My Phone feature. A couple excerpts from the entertaining story:
“The Lego convention was drawing to a close and it was time for the closing ceremony. But I wasn’t about to spend an hour sitting through awards and Lego-themed thank-you speeches while my poor lost iPhone sat in some random Chicago neighborhood. So we packed my Lego creations, tossed them in the rental car, and drove from Wheeling back into town. Mark reestablished his trusty Sprint connection and as we drove, every five minutes, he refreshed the location. The phone wasn’t moving. It appeared to be in a row of buildings on the north side of Medill St.”
“…Now, put yourself in the shoes of the iPhone thiever who will momentarily be entering the story. You might have told yourself, “Hey, free iPhone!” the night before. You might have seen the gently-threatening messages and ignored them, maybe even scoffed. Then the phone told you it was on Medill St. It talked to you in Spanish. And you saw three skinny white guys prowling in the street with a laptop computer open.
“So you take off down the road, and to your shock and horror, the honkeys follow you. You stand at your local bus stop, expecting to lose them. And they converge on your location from across the intersection, the bald one with the laptop yelling and pointing at you. You probably think the angels of death have found you.
“He sheepishly waved me over.”
Final score: MobileMe “Find My Phone” 1 – Thief 0