One device allows a user to remotely activate a loud siren designed to rattle the thief. Another application, designed for iPhones, can reveal the phone's location.
Police statistics show petty crime is down in New York but anecdotal evidence and recent headlines about street muggings targeting costly and coveted devices like Apple's iPhone and T-Mobile's Sidekick have disturbed smartphone users concerned about protecting access to e-mail, passwords and other data.
"When we have seen spikes in thefts, a significant portion has to do with ... highly desirable products," said police spokesman Paul Browne. "In the last couple of years it's been iPods, Sidekicks, iPhones."
He said most of these muggings involve teenagers robbing other teenagers and take place on subways in the afternoon after schools get out.
New technology helps owners of expensive gadgets to get them back after they are lost or stolen. The Find My iPhone feature from Apple, which declined to comment for this story, enables users to determine the phone's location and erase the data on it, among other things.
A Chicago blogger who tried the feature after his iPhone disappeared tracked the phone's movements from a friend's computer. According to his post on LiveJournal, he got his phone back — and a handshake from the surprised culprit.
"You're lucky you didn't get shot in the face," read one comment on the blog.
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- ClipsFC
- added this
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You had better shoot me if you're gonna try to jack my new technology. Or I'm coming after you.
And you must have giant balls or a tiny brain to steal any kind of new technology, with all the GPS and location services out there now.-
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- Bigdog_mike
- 5 months ago
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Apple iPhone's remote wipe feature can only work if the the stolen iPhone is on a network. If a thief takes out the SIM card, it's a forever goner.
This is one of the reasons why corporate people are hesitating to switch to iPhone. Unlike with Blackberry, once you've lost your iPhone, you're stone cold dead in the water.
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- beatnik_kid
- 5 months ago
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I've got lojack for laptops. I wonder when they'll develop lojack for iPhones?
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- Mikeysfake1
- 5 months ago
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Apple certainly needs to develop better security solutions for the iPhone. It`s a luxury device & as such its certainly going to get stolen. Sucks that people are so concerned that they feel they need to fight back and risk injury.
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@fortescue on twitter says "Sega's Columns for iPhone free for the weekend - (via ) #iphone"
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- twitterbot
- 5 months ago
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