“Slipping back into a lazy editorial stance that it rode last year all the way to a Pulitzer Prize, the New York Times has crafted a front page story about the growing problem of cellphone thefts that manages to shift the blame from the thieves who steal them to the carriers that subsidize them and the manufacturers that make them — singling out Apple in particular,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.
George Gascón, San Francisco’s district attorney, says handset makers like Apple should be exploring new technologies that could help prevent theft: “Unlike other types of crimes, this is a crime that could be easily fixed with a technological solution.” – Brian X. Chen and Malia Wollan, The New York Times, May 2, 2013
“Apple does offer users a technological solution, as readers discover in the 14th paragraph. It’s called Find My Phone… Google and Samsung and the other manufacturers of Android phones, we learn later, do not offer the equivalent of a Find My Android, yet executives at Google and Samsung are not interviewed for the piece,” P.E.D. reports. “The Times piece doesn’t say so, but the reason iPhones are favored by thieves is they hold their resale value better than competing smartphones.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Makes you wonder what else The New York Times is lying about.
It’s unsurprising that The New York Times‘ earnings are down 93% year over year.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Thumper” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
iTheft busters: NYPD forms dedicated team to catch iPhone and iPad thieves – February 22, 2013
Thanks to Apple’s ‘Find My iPad,’ California police arrest Christmas present thief – December 27, 2011
Apple’s ‘Find My iPhone’ helps find wreckage of Chilean plane crash – September 7, 2011
Find My iPhone! Hampshire binmen save iPhone after rubbish error – January 13, 2011
Mugging victim uses Apple’s ‘Find My iPhone’ to track robbers – August 31, 2009
NYC thieves want iPhones, victims are fighting back with tech like Apple’s ‘Find My iPhone’ – July 2, 2009
NYT FAIL. Who paid off Brian X. Chen and Malia Wollan of The New York Times? ScamDung? TechTard journalism in evidence, yet again.
😛 😛 😛
For the record, I actually read the article on the NYTimes web site last night.
Yes, you can use the Find my iPhone app. But the article says that some thieves are taking the battery out, reprogramming the IMEI (?) and then shipping the phones out to other countries. (Some thieves do resell locally.) Thus the bad guys are managing to circumvent the North American stolen phone IMEI database.
Normally, I’m kinda OK with the macdailynews response. I would disagree this time. The phone manufacturers have to come up with a better way to deal with stolen smartphones. Thieves are stealing the phones and reselling them elsewhere.
I don’t see a lot of incentive for smartphone manufacturers to clamp down on the problem. If the phone gets stolen, the user usually buys another one. The user base grows (stolen resold phones + new replacement phones) and there are more people buying apps from the app marketplace. it’s good for the manufacturers, but bad for the victims.
(I own an iPhone and I do have Find my iPhone installed. If my iPhone gets stolen by a really smart thief, I have no hope in getting my phone back. My boss is gonna shell out for a new iPhone for me. That’s big bucks down the drain.)
Your comment is kinda empty in the fact the kind of thief you talk of is going to circumvent any kind of safeguard a manufacturer uses.
Maybe Apple should create some kind of physical tethering for security. I’m sure that’d satisfy you and the NYTimes.
It’s actually kind of sad to see the NYT report this way. They mention that car thefts are down because all the industry has done. It would seem to me that a $12K-$80K item has more room for security measures than a $650. And oh, by the way, a simple Internet search can show you the crime statistics for any state and the District of Columbia; since the article notes that 1,829 cellphones (not even the smartphones being discussed in the article) were taken in robberies, we must compare that to the motor vehicle theft total of 5,036.
And first they say that Find My iPhone can’t work once the device is turned off or removed from the Internet. And that the national database of stolen phones doesn’t help because many go overseas. But a “kill” switch is needed. Presumably our phones — all phones that are desirable, in fact — will need to check in with manufacturer on a frequent enough basis to render a “kill” switch effective at deterring theft.
But here’s a really novel thought: Go back to the last sentence of the first paragraph of the article and spend time thinking about what law enforcement is saying here: “Again, the police said they could not help her.” It’s not that they can’t help her, it’s that they choose not to — and I’m not saying that they don’t have better things to do with their time — but they are chartered with enforcing the law, not Apple, not AT&T.
The proof is given, and the messenger is chastised. For anyone’s information the cell phone manufacturers (INCLUDING APPLE) could do more, a HELL of a lot more to protect against the theft of cell phones! “Find my iPhone” only works when the phone is turned on and has access to the Internet. When theft rings steal your phone and put it in a warehouse, what is their impetus to turn it on? It’s leaving the country! Why don’t the cell phone manufacturers and carriers do more? M-o-n-e-y. Why follow a stolen phone when we can sell them a new one?
Read between the lines people and think!
What an incredible page of vacuous drivel. I’m with auramac. Left or right – want to have juvenile, mud-slinging “discussions” of politics, please do it on political sites.
Just another (continuing) example of riding Apple’s coattails and stabbing them in the back while they go!
Why does the comment section of MDN so frequently turn into a right vs. left political debate by Americans? Surely there are more appropriate places to have such arguments.
Mark, in the USA sovereignty resides in the people, and we know it. We take our responsibility to govern ourselves very seriously, and we’re passionate about it. We’re aware (on both sides of the aisle) that government is into many things that, for good or ill, affect us all, and that government policy — that is, the policies established by those guys who work for us — has a major impact on our lives. Like most intelligent people of good will, we disagree about it, and because we believe that “our way” of doing it would be beneficial to everyone, we hash it out in public – because ALL of us, liberal or conservative, are interested in what’s best for everyone, and almost all of us are willing to be convinced that there’s another way that’s better, which will would then support.
Think of it as “question time” writ large.
There IS one more technological thing that Apple could do to help prevent iPhone thefts, which they have not yet done:
REQUIRE THE PASSCODE IN ORDER TO TURN OFF THE PHONE.
Find My iPhone doesn’t work if the phone is off, and turning the iPhone off is something that nowadays surely every phone thief knows to do first thing.
There should also be an option if the passcode is entered badly a number of times (or remotely triggered) to start silently/invisibly making an active call for help, with constant location updates. Currently the only option in this case is to wipe the phone, which is great for keeping your data safe, but not so hot in terms of getting the phone back (which is what most of us want).
This would be simple to implement, and it’s surprising that Apple doesn’t respond to the many calls for this capability that it’s already received.
It’s easy going after a big target like Apple.