The Secret iPhone & the Power of MobileMe: How Apple Wiped a Stolen iPhone

Secret iPhone

By now you’ve probably heard that Gizmodo got a hold of Apple’s next iPhone after an Apple engineer accidentally left it at a bar in Redwood City, California. I’m not going to repeat the story to you (go read it), but what I found most intriguing about the ordeal was that Apple remotely wiped the data from the secret iPhone once they realized it was missing. So espionage-esque.

I can hear Steve Jobs yelling, “Abort iPhone!”, and VP Phil Schiller dutifully extends his palm to push down the Big Red Button. And then the iPhone, in some far away place, goes blank.

Phew! Imagine if Gizmodo had gotten their hands on the data on that iPhone. That would have been a whole different fiasco. Instead, Apple saved what remains of their dignity by wiping the iPhone clean.

How’d they wipe the iPhone?

You might be thinking: Apple must have access to some secret CIA technology to just wipe an iPhone at the push of a button like that. But actually, Gizmodo’s secret iPhone was wiped out by a service that’s available to all iPhone users, MobileMe.

MobileMe

Maybe you already know about MobileMe’s Remote Wipe feature, but it was news to me, since I’ve usually paid no attention to the service. After doing some research on MobileMe’s Remote Wipe capabilities, here’s what I learned about what MobileMe can (and can’t) do to recover or protect a stolen iPhone:

  • You can locate your lost iPhone on a map.
  • You can remotely set a Passcode Lock. Of course, those are easy to crack apparently.
  • You can display a message or play a sound on a lost iPhone.
  • You can remotely wipe the data from a lost iPhone, like Apple did to the iPhone before Gizmodo got to it.

In my opinion, the Remote Wipe service alone is worth $99 a year. Considering how much I rely on my iPhone, it worries me to think about what could happen if I lost it. My heart would sink. But I haven’t taken the plunge yet.

Have you tried MobileMe?

What do you think of Apple’s MobileMe cloud services? Have you ever Remote Wiped your iPhone? How did it go? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.

Helpful Links

Apple – MobileMe
Apple – MobileMe – Find Your iPhone

Gizmodo & Lifehacker Bloggers to Pen iPhone Book

Gizmodo iPhone Book

Remember the iPhone for Dummies book I found on Amazon a couple days ago?

Well Gizmodo’s Jason Chen and Lifehacker’s Adam Pash have plans to pen an iPhone book of their own, How to Do Everything with Your iPhone, and it too is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

Chen and Pash will get their hands on an iPhone in June and have the book out by December. They say it’s going to be “the most comprehensive iPhone guide in the multiverse” (but what else would you expect to hear from the book’s authors?).

No word yet on the contents of the book, except for what’s on the cover, which if I may say looks pretty boring. I imagine they’ll revamp it by December, though.