The iCloud detective agency is back for another round of solving thefts.
The Times-Tribune is reporting that a New York man had left his briefcase containing an iPad under his seat on a plane in Dallas, Texas. After realizing he had forgotten it, he called the airline looking for it but they could not locate the missing briefcase.
This led the tech-savvy man to use Apple’s iCloud service to track his iPad to Monroe County, Texas. The man then contacted state police to hit the address that iCloud had pointed him to.
Lynette Simpkins, 52, admitted to the theft. The iPad and other stolen items were returned to the man. Simpkins was arrested on a charge of receiving stolen property.
This was all accomplished through the Find my iPhone app that allows users to locate their device through GPS tracking software when the device ends up missing. If the device is just lost, it will play a loud sound, even if the phone is set to silent, and display a message to anyone who has found the phone a way of contacting the person who has lost the device.
The service also allows users to remotely lock their devices so that anybody who does find the device can’t access any of the personal information stored on it. It also sends an email to the user once it is found in case the device is not getting a signal either through 3G or wi-fi.
This isn’t the first time that Find my iPhone has helped solve crime. Porn actress Jesse Jane had her iPhone stolen recently and used iCloud to get it back.
Find my iPhone isn’t the only service out there to help find stolen property either. An OSX app called Hidden helped a man get his macbook back last year.
Heck, even digital cameras are no longer safe from the prying eyes of the internet police. Stolencamerafinder does as its name implies by finding pictures on the internet that have the same EXIF as the stolen camera.
As Find my iPhone and other tracking systems become more popular, it’s going to become harder to steal items such as smartphones. At least people can still run burglary rings without getting caught by the internet police. Oh wait…