Last week, Apple added a new feature for MobileMe and iPhone users: When accessing MobileMe on an iPhone, it now shows “a link to use Find My iPhone from a friend’s iPhone/iPod touch if you need to locate your lost iPhone/iPod on a map, display a message, play a sound, or remotely lock or wipe it.” Previously, you could only access these Find My iPhone options via a Mac or PC.
This new addition came just in the nick of time for my wife (Naomi). Yesterday, we went to see a movie. When we got up to leave, Naomi discovered that her iPhone was missing from her purse. We had been to several places that evening. Her iPhone could have been at any one of them.
Did we need to retrace our steps, possibly taking an hour or more, in a search for her iPhone? Nope. All we needed to do was whip out my iPhone and use the new Find My iPhone option. We did. And we discovered, with relief, that her iPhone had somehow been left back at our house.
Postscript: When we returned home, we still could not locate the phone. Because Naomi had turned off her iPhone’s sound, we could not call her phone to help find it. So we used another Find My iPhone feature: “Play a sound on your iPhone, even if it is in silent mode.” That did it. iPhone found. Story over. Happy ending.
Thanks Apple, for helping save our day!