“The disappearance of a device is far and away the most serious digital security and privacy risk that owners of Apple laptops and mobile devices face,” Riva Richmond reports for The New York Times.
“For quite some time, Apple has given iPhone, iTouch and iPad owners a way to mitigate this risk by offering them a free app that can locate a lost or stolen device and, if it can’t be retrieved, wipe it of its contents remotely,” Richmond reports. “Now, with the introduction of its iCloud service, Apple has brought this capability to its computers with a feature called Find My Mac.”
Richmond reports, “It can locate your Mac when it’s on and connected to the Internet, cause it to play a sound or display a message to whoever found it or lock the machine or erase all of its contents… You simply visit the iCloud.com Web site and sign in with your Apple ID and password. If your Mac is on and online, you will be able to see its location on a Google map. The site will also show you where your iPhone and iPad are if you have installed Find apps on them. Click on the circle with an ‘i’ inside to open a box, and choose it to make a sound go off, display message, lock it or wipe it.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Can’t get it to work on MacBook Pro 15″. Get the message No location found or offline. I have the MacBook Pro on and connected to WiFi.
Unfortunately, the “wake for network access” must be enabled in Sys Prefs for Find MY Mac to work effectively. When you have your Mac Pro in your bedroom, nothing like hearing the fans whoosh couple times over night.
“The site will also show you where your iPhone and iPad are if you have installed Find apps on them.”
yeah, thats not how it works. you turn on Find My iPhone in the iCloud settings, without ever installing the app on your device.
Not sure what happened, but today I tried find my Mac! (MacBook Pro) And it located it! I have been trying since I downloaded iOS5 could not get it to work, until today… I did nothing!
I’m hoping that if they can find my Mac, they might reconsider letting me go Back to My Mac in iCloud?
Just wondering – if your Mac is connected to the web via a satellite ISP, where do you appear to be? The ISP’s ground station? Granted 1) not so many people use satellite and 2) if you track to the ISP, they are likely to assist in the next bits.
Nice but I like mactrack as it will also snap pictures and they will work the cops to get it back..