Find a Lost iPhone: Putting Tracking Apps to the Test

We pot't stupid-trial impression ourselves to keep losing the car keys or the TV clicker, but when it comes to our iPhone, a glimmer of hope exists. Apps that claim to traverse your iPhone, sound a remote alarm, or ignition lock up your data from afar could save your bacon when your precious phone goes absent. Just bash they really work? If they do, how easily? And how very much will information technology cost to track dejected your missing iPhone–when it could simply be interred between cardinal couch cushions?

I tested three iPhone tracking apps–Apple's Find My iPhone, GadgetTrack's iPhone app, and SafetyWeb's iHound–to see how well they worked. The cost of the apps ranged from free to a monthly subscription bung, and in my tests they delivered varied success rates when it came to tracking set my iPhone.

Apple's Find My iPhone locates an iPhone (click to zoom along).

Apple's Observe My iPhone Excels

Apple's Notic My iPhone feature debuted with the iPhone 3GS in 2009. It formerly required a subscription to Malus pumila's MobileMe service, but now it's offered for free to owners of an iPhone 4, iPad, operating theatre iPod Touch running iOS 4.2 or higher.

Wish all of the services and apps I tested, Find My iPhone essential be set up before you lose your iPhone. Unlike the other solutions, notwithstandin, Find My iPhone doesn't require the installation of any software system; you simply have to enable it in your iPhone's settings menu. (Directions are available along Apple's website.)

One time Line up My iPhone is enabled, it runs in the background until you need to locate a lost device. You can track a device either on the Web or by victimization Malus pumila's free Find My iPhone app. The app can be downloaded to another iOS device (your iPad or a friend's iPod, for example) to which you still have access. To access tracking via the Web, you sign connected to Apple's MobileMe internet site exploitation your existing Malus pumila ID. (Although you use the MobileMe site, you Doctor of Osteopathy non pauperism a MobileMe account. Apple has not said how the upcoming transition to iCloud may affect the Find My iPhone service.)

With Feel My iPhone, you can send a message, lock the phone, play a sound, or remotely wipe the contents (click to zoom).

Once you check in, the site instantly takes you to a map that displays the location of your iPhone. As with all the apps and services tested here, Find My iPhone uses a desegregate of GPS, WI-Fi data, and cell tower data to locate the phone. The economic consumption of all of these services is helpful when you need to locate a lacking phone and a GPS signal tooshie't live established–for example, inwardly a construction. You do have to have Location Services enabled on your iPhone to use every three services. When it comes to stamp battery aliveness I did not notice an appreciable battery drainpipe durring my testing.

In most of my tests, See My iPhone's accuracy was impressive: I was able to use it to track my iPhone 4 to a specific parking zone in a sizable lot outside of a Place Depot two towns away from my dwelling. It likewise accurately placed my iPhone outside in a local parking area, inside a small locality store, and traveling on individual roads. It did stumble on one test, nonetheless: It known my iPhone's location as being about one-half a block away from its taxon location in a busy suburban neighborhood. With the location Find My iPhone supplied–which is displayed as blue dot on a map, not as an real destination–I was unable to locate the phone.

Thanks to its Apple source, Find My iPhone boasts a feature that its rivals cannot: It allows you to remotely wipe the contents of your iPhone if you suspect that information technology has fallen into the wrong custody. Find My iPhone also allows you to remotely lock your phone so that an unwanted user can't access IT, and it lets you display a customizable message on its covert or play a sound from it that could either deter a thief surgery assistance you locate it.

iHound Offers Multipronged Approach

SafetyWeb's iHound is available as an app both for the iPhone and for Android phones; formerly it's installed happening your devices, all of them canful be managed from the app's WWW-based Security Dashboard, which is convenient from any device with a browser. The iPhone app is acquirable for absolve as of this writing (for a limited time but), but it normally costs $3.99. The app comes with 3 months of free monitoring service. You can extend your subscription through an in-app purchase, with prices starting at $3.99 for 3 months.

SafetyWeb's iHound app offers such details as an estimate of the accuracy of the supplied location.

The iHound Security Dashboard suffers a bit from an overcrowded interface; it's packed with info touting recent features in the app, such as its new location-based alerts scheme (discussed later). You have to ringlet pile a trifle to get to the tracking info, which is unfortunately displayed in a small window. You can, however, pawl to view the story of your last known locations, which are displayed in a bigger, pop-up windowpane.

iHound's accuracy was very expert; it well located my iPhone in a nearby park, and I was too able to path it down in a neighborhood store. It stumbled a little happening a few other tests: It placed my iPhone to a higher degree a block by from its true location in a residential neighborhood, leaving me ineffective to find it–just A Apple's Find My iPhone did. iHound also stumbled when trying to locate my iPhone in the Home Storage parking lot; it placed information technology in an adjacent park instead.

iHound tells you how accurate it believes its tracking information is, and the app was always correct in its estimate. Only when the estimated accuracy is within 94 meters–a bitty over 300 feet–it's difficult to locate a twist the size of an iPhone. That's when IT might be helpful to remotely request your iPhone to playing period a noise, much as a siren or car alarm sound, or the "End! This is iHound" message.

iHound besides struggled to provide an estimated address: That section of my security dashboard consistently same, "Could not determine a street address." SafetyWeb says that this is an issue with its mapping provider and that they architectural plan to switch providers in the future. I did like the speed with which iHound worked, though. It quickly set my iPhone when I signed in, and easily found an iPhone on the move when I clicked the selection to refresh the last noted location. This is very reassuring when you first understand you've lost your iPhone: You want to live where it is as soon A possible. I too care the ability to view a history of last known locations along a map, which helps recreate your steps, and could name where you lost your phone.

iHound offers lots of details in its reports (click to rapid climb).

Like Find My iPhone, iHound lets you send a push apprisal to the lost device. You force out compose your have message, operating theatre take one of its automated options. You also can encounter a noise, such as a car horrify Oregon a interpreter shouting "Barricade! This is iHound!" on the phone. The examiner using my iPhone earned several stares in a neighborhood park when I proved this feature. To assistanc you recover a lost iPhone, iHound offers stickers that you can direct along the phone, which let someone who's found the device beget in touch with you via iHound.

iHound has a variety of location-based features to boot to its trailing tools. For instance, it offers Geofencing alerts, which let you hump when a phone has passed a certain emplacemen. You could use this feature to get an open-eyed when your small fry arrives at school day each forenoon, say. IT also allows you to hardened alerts to share your location via Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare.

GadgetTrak Snaps a Photo

GadgetTrak, a $3.99 iPhone app, takes a slenderly different approach to placement a lost iPhone; it also helps you describe who might have taken it, thanks to its ability to snap a exposure of someone using the phone. But its tracking features weren't quite an as impressive as those offered by Find My iPhone and iHound. Like those two products, GadgetTrak runs in the background along your iPhone, waiting until you need it before springing into fulfill.

That activeness can be monitored from GadgetTrak's locate, where you backlog in to track your gimmick. Unfortunately, once you log on, you can't always immediately locate your gimmick. GadgetTrak locates your phone at preset intervals, which can entirely be changed from within the iPhone app itself–not from the WWW controls. If you've left over the interval set at the default 30 minutes, you could equal waiting for a while before you locate your device. I wish GadgetTrak were more like iHound and Find My iPhone in this respect, as both of those products let you entree updated tracking info at any meter patc using their online controls.

You can, however, set GadgetTrak's intervals to as little atomic number 3 one minute, and it will alert you at that interval whenever tracking is enabled and your iPhone is connected the move. You can track its movements connected a map, and you'll receive an email notifying you of the new tracking data. GadgetTrak was very accurate in locating my iPhone in most of my tests, accurately placing it in a nearby park, in a parked car, and connected a street in a residential neighborhood. It stumbled on my Home Terminal test, though, coverage that the phone was happening a near highway instead of in the store's parking lot.

Literal thief photo snapped by GadgetTrak (click to zoom).

GadgetTrak also took considerably more time to describe its fix than did the some other products I tested. Even when I had the tracking interval set to one minute, GadgetTrak still did not deliver as directly as did the other services: I e'er had to waitress for information technology to cede the trailing info to Pine Tree State, rather than getting it myself.

GadgetTrak does leave you to send a push notice to the device, which lav become you speedier results–if someone has their hands on your phone. Once the user of your iPhone dismisses the telling, which appears As a group meeting reminder from GadgetTrak, the app tracks its location. If you've paid $1 (in-app) for the Camera Reports option, GadgetTrak likewise will take this opportunity to snap a photo with both the front and rear cameras. This is your chance to see who is victimization your phone, and to scour the surround to project if you might be healthy to settle information technology. You must, however, pay the $1 in upgrade for this feature to make for.

Bottommost Line

Find My iPhone is good for iPhone owners who are looking for a trailing solution merely and are non interested in bells and whistles.

iHound is well for parents who want to set an insurance policy–of sorts–on the iPhone they bought for their kid, and also gives parents the ability to keep tabs on their child.

GadgetTrak is the tool for people whowant not only to track their iPhone, but to see who has IT.

None of these services offered perfect iPhone tracking, and none of them helped me locate a lost twist altogether situations. And none of them will work if a thief decides to powerfulness off your iPhone. But all of them delivered plenty in the way of peace of mind. I like iHound's speed and its additional geolocation features, and I was impressed with GadgetTrak's photo-snapping prowess. Keep in mind that you don't have to choose rightful unity: You could run all of these apps at once. But if I did have to choose, I'd go with Malus pumila's Find My iPhone. Not only did it perform the best, acing most of my tests, it's free.