[janus]

Ha, last winter I lost my phone while snowboarding in the last 300-500m before mountain base. I noticed because I was listening to music with my airpods when I got to the bottom the music had gone silent. Thankfully I had my Apple watch with me, so I immediately got off the board and start running uphill while incessantly spamming the "ping my phone" button. At some point I saw in the watch screen it briefly connected and then immediately disconnected again. I realized somebody had probably grabbed it and skied by me. I went back running to the chairlift while still spamming the button and finally found the person who had grabbed it, a few seconds before he got into the chairlift. I felt that day that the watch investment had been worth it hah.

[lxgr]

My friend was able to retrieve his phone that had just been pickpocketed out of his backpack that way!

"Hey, did you just grab my phone" can take some courage to say to a stranger; "Hey, I can hear my phone ringing in your bag when I press this button!" was much more convincing.

[pestatije]

can you not power-off an iphone without unlocking?

[lxgr]

You can; the thief just didn’t get to do that because they were busy getting away in a non-conspicuous way.

But even turned off, “Find my” stays active these days (although you can no longer make it ring, I believe).

[oldbbsnickname]

That option can be disabled by turning off "Find My network" such that the phone will be off and radio silent. With it on, it will continue to beacon until the battery reaches the final BMS low voltage point.

[klinquist]

but turning it off requires your password/PIN.

[wincy]

Yeah but turning on airplane mode does disable find my

[lxgr]

It doesn’t, as far as I know (or rather, it might turn off the ability to ping the phone, but passive Bluetooth/Find my cloud location should still work).

And even if it does, turning on Airplane mode is not possible anymore for a locked phone.

[oldbbsnickname]

Disassemble and remove the battery. I can do this in about 1-2 minutes, others more skilled can do it in <30 seconds.

[okr]

And then? You can not turn it on again, without also activating the beacon.

I wonder if stolen iphones have any value except for hardware parts.

[layer8]

1) Faraday cage.

2) If the thief knows or can guess your passcode, you are screwed, because they can take over your iCloud: https://www.macrumors.com/2023/04/19/apple-responds-to-iphon...

[neves]

In Brazil the thief menaces you till you give him your password

[jamespo]

they don't have many guesses to do that, how would they know the code given almost everyone unlocks via camera?

[Cthulhu_]

Didn't iphones start to have DRM on the individual components?

[teekert]

Yeah I also wonder what a thief would do with it? Maybe the recycle value is enough for her? Or she gets it to a store where they don't check and recycle parts?

[lxgr]

While walking and without alerting the person you just bumped into to the fact that you just took their phone? More realistically, a well-prepared/tech-savvy thief could just drop the phone into a Faraday bag in their backpack/pocket, or alternatively just turn off the phone!

Fortunately, the one that my friend encountered didn't do any of that.

[subarctic]

Was he stealing it? I found a phone on the slopes last year, but I gave it to the liftee - figured I'd let them figure out how to get it back to the owner.

[InSteady]

This reads like an ad.

[olyjohn]

Lost my FRS radio up on the mountain once. I started calling it from my friends radio... "Hello, I'm a lost radio, please find me" and someone called me back and met up with me to return the radio.

[amatecha]

hahaha, that's great! I can imagine hiking along and hearing this scratchy voice emanating from "nowhere", tracking it down and finding this lonely radio on the ground, pleading for help to be brought back to its owner! :)