iPhone stolen

MartyM

Hi All,

I’m not sure if this is the correct forum to post this but I need people with iPhone knowledge to provide me with advice.

My wife had her iPhone4S stolen last night in Dublin. The worst thing is that she has lost a large volume of family photos and videos. Unfortunately she did not have iCloud set up and does not have any GPS tracking apps installed. Lessons have been learnt the hard way in that respect!

The theft has been reported to O2 who disabled the phone, and to the Garda who took the IMEI details.

Advice or feedback on the following would be much appreciated:

• Although no GPS tracking apps are installed on the iPhone, is there any way that Apple or the Garda could track the phone?
• Although O2 have disabled the phone, can the thief still use it as an “iPod Touch”? i.e. Use Wi-Fi to connect to the internet, Gmail, iTunes, etc.
• What security measures should my wife take? We have changed her Gmail, iTunes and Facebook passwords. Anything else we should consider?
• The phone was pin protected and will wipe after 10 incorrect login attempts. Can this be easily bypassed so that they could gain access to her personal details?
• Although iCloud was not set up on the phone, can we access iCloud from a laptop and try and retrieve photos from the stolen phone?

Thanks in advance!

CathalDublin

• Although no GPS tracking apps are installed on the iPhone, is there any way that Apple or the Garda could track the phone?
No, even if you have findmyiphone or similar on it would be extremely rare the Garda would do anything for you, phone theft is Dublin is so common.
• Although O2 have disabled the phone, can the thief still use it as an “iPod Touch”? i.e. Use Wi-Fi to connect to the internet, Gmail, iTunes, etc.
Yes, and if the phone was sim free it will also be usable in any other country as a phone too.
• What security measures should my wife take? We have changed her Gmail, iTunes and Facebook passwords. Anything else we should consider?
If there was a passlock on the phone it was probably just wiped immediately.
• The phone was pin protected and will wipe after 10 incorrect login attempts. Can this be easily bypassed so that they could gain access to her personal details?
No, it is near impossible to get any data from it especially if she was on ios6.
• Although iCloud was not set up on the phone, can we access iCloud from a laptop and try and retrieve photos from the stolen phone?
No, iCloud is just a backup service, if nothing was backed up there will be nothing to do

MartyM

Excellent reply, thanks Cathal!

flyguy

You say iCloud backup was not setup, but was the phone not (wifi/cable) synced to your pc/laptop? You might be able to retrieve some data (photos etc) through that. Maybe you recently updated the iOS using a laptop/pc? A backup would have been automatically stored on your computer at that time.
There is no app that needs to be installed on the phone for find my iPhone to work, it only had to be switched on. It's part of iCloud, not having iCloud backup setup doesn't automatically mean that the find my iPhone feature isn't enabled (you can use either or, whatever you prefer). Maybe it was switched on, the way to find out is to get an hold of a iOS device (any would do, you could use one of a friend/family) install find my iPhone then enter you apple/iCloud ID and see if it appears.
Good luck!

guil

You can also go on a pc or mac web browser and go to iCloud.com and sign in to track the phone. Won't be any use if the phone was restored though. Also syncing won't transfer any photos from phone to pc but a backup would have a copy of them