I recently installed the app Find iPhone on my iPad, i followed all the instruction on how to set it up. I was wonder how does it work? How would I be able to locate my iPad?

How does it work or how do I use it?

The second question is easier to answer without knowing the technical details of how your devices report where they currently are to Apple.

You need to enable Find my iPhone/iPad under a Mobile Me account in Settings->Mail. If you don't have a Mobile Me account, you can get one for free here. Use your iTunes email address for the easiest way to remember this one.

Once you have enabled Mobile Me Find my iDevice, then when you run the Find iPhone App on your iPad, iPhone or through the me.com website, you log into your Mobile Me account and it will display where it believes your devices are.

If you are offline, it may not be able to display anything, but when you do come back online it will send you an email and tell you that it found you.

You can remote WIPE, LOCK or send a message and sound to your device to help you locate it.

Recently it was able to help a friend find her lost iPod Touch - which it turns out was in the back seat of her car. It located the device because it automatically connected to the Wifi network at Starbucks from the parking lot... and sent her email saying it was "found" while she was having coffee there...

Thank you very much for explaining it to me, I appreciate it!!

It uses either the GPS (if fitted) or a database of WiFi hotspots to locate your iPad or iPhone. These locations are reported to Apple using either 3G or WiFi.

Tim

The Apple database of WiFi hotspots is actually pretty slick - though there are some who think it's an invasion of privacy. Data is collected anonymously with no way to tie it to your phone.

The iPhone and 3G iPads are regularly sending updates to Apple about WiFi hotspots near them. This geo-database of WiFi hotspots allows you to know where you are when connected to a WiFi hotpot, as well as more quickly know where you are even on an iPhone or 3G iPad with a GPS. If anyone has ever connected to your personal WiFi hotspot with an iPhone or 3G iPad, you are in the database.

The Q&A session is here Apple - Press Info - Apple Q&A on Location Data

For application developers using location information, it can be a little misleading sometimes. Your own development and testing environments are often extremely well mapped, and then the area where some of your customers are located can be sparsely mapped....at least at first...

We've had customers complain about locations not being accurate, and then once we've been able to contact them about the problem and work with them a little to try to debug the problem, they have no issues any longer with their locations being properly mapped... This in a large part is because the more you use your iPhone and 3G iPad - or anyone does - in any given area, the better the quality this database becomes.

-t

Thanks for that!! A very interesting link, too.

Tim

Try actually finding your iPad on Apples site. I found it rather freaky it showed where my iPad was (on the desk I was sitting at) to probably within 3-4 metres of it's location and that was in the centre of a building admittedly a single story one.

This helped a lot lol

Side note, my daughter just turned 16, and she got a new iPhone along with my wife's old car. I use the app just to make sure she's where she claims to be. Works awesomely.

Originally Posted by LawPad2

Side note, my daughter just turned 16, and she got a new iPhone along with my wife's old car. I use the app just to make sure she's where she claims to be. Works awesomely.

LOL is she aware of that?