iPhone and iPad Lost in the Trash, Found With MobileMe

Mitch Buchannon

I found this on story abcnews.com

source: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/iphone-ipad-lost-trash-found-mobileme/story?id=10992632&page=1

When Eric Boehs saw the garbage truck coming he panicked. Desperate to get the trash carted away, he ran to get the bags, setting down his own bag, his iPhone and iPad.

What happened next has disappeared into an anguished blur of guilt and confusion. All Eric knew was that when the mists of his memory cleared, there were two things missing: The iPhone and the iPad.

Being a switched-on guy, Eric fired up his Mac and used MobileMe's Find My iPhone service to pinpoint his iPhone on Google Maps. His phone and the garbage truck were parked outside Hooters. The crew, presumably, were enjoying "lunch."

After 45 minutes, the phone still hadn't moved, so Eric and his friend Billy jumped in his car and started to follow the iPhone using Billy's iPad, with videographer Kyle Roberts following along.

Meanwhile, the trash crew had finished lunch and were on the move. Billy and Eric were trying to close the gap but they were up against the clock.

Every time Billy pinged the iPhone to get its location, the battery would be drained a little more. Soon, the guys caught a break, and the truck stopped again, maybe for another snack, or maybe the crew was done for the day.

Eric was pessimistic. "I think the iPad's gonna be cracked in half," he said. Billy thought it would be covered in grease.

Ground zero. The guys arrived at the iPhone's reported location, but there was no trash truck. Eric used MobileMe to tell his iPhone to beep. This can be done from both the MobileMe website, or the new Find My iPhone app from Apple.

The advantage of the web version is that you can stay signed in if you need to switch away from the page. Eric and Billy were using the web.

They were in a motel parking lot. The dumpster there came up empty, so they set the beep again and stared listening at doors. Nothing. They spoke to the neighbors.

One of them wasn't too happy about them filming the whole operation. "Dude, surely you're not filming right now," he said to Kyle, "I'm wanted by the law." Kyle blurred his face from the finished film.

Eric and Billy were determined. They knew that the iPhone at least was nearby, and likely the iPad with it. They found some friendly guys from a roofing company taking a break and asked them if they'd seen the phone.

"You got a white one?" the first roofer asked, grinning.

"It is!" said Eric.

"It got ran over?"

"Probably."

"Hell, open your trunk!" called the roofer at one of his coworkers.
"I got an iPhone, and an iPad. One of these guys," said Eric, pointing at Billy's iPad.

"They both got ran over?"

The roofer pulled them both from his cab and showed Eric the tire tracks on both. The iPad and the iPhone were never even on the garbage truck. The roofers had found them in the road and, thinking they were maybe broken, tossed them in the cab. Eric was of course very happy, but there was one mystery remaining.

"I have to ask you guys a question," asked Kyle, "Did you go to Hooters earlier today?"

"Yes," said one roofer.

"Where do you think he's gonna want to eat lunch every day?" asked another. He was still drinking from a Hooters paper cup.

And the i-devices? Not so good. The iPhone was obviously still working, as it had faithfully sent position updates back to the mother ship, but the screen was crushed. The iPad was broken in a far more unusual way.

Whatever had driven over it was heavy enough to crush the aluminum unibody casing so hard that it was stretched over the parts inside like it was vacuum-formed. The screen, although popping out at the edges, was completely unscathed.

What have we learned? That Find my iPhone works great, that the iPad screen is tougher than it seems, and that roofers like a little scenery when they eat their lunch.


So have any of you guys got mobileme ? If so what do you think of it ?

clansman

I cant get my iphone to sync with mobileme. I just added the account a few mins ago so maybe it takes a few mins.
I have fetch new data tunred to push. and i have contacts etc... turned to "on" and to "merge with mobile me".


Edit:
starting to sync now, kinda slow. calendar and contacts only have synced.

IamMetaldave

Good story. MobileMe is awesome, but agree, it needs a major price drop!!

jester77

I wouldn't call mobileme awesome, it's good for keeping the iphone in sync over the cloud with your other devices and PC's. I use both gmail and mobileme.

Mobileme contacts are miles ahead of google's. I would slightly give the edge to google's calendar as mobileme does not show subscribed calendars on the web. Gmail thumps mobileme mail. Mobileme's new rules are too basic, the web interface is slow and awkward to navigate and gmails spam filter is amazing.

Mobilme also includes iDisk and Gallery (and iWeb, but that is rubbish unless you just want to display something basic). These work really well, I'm a big fan of idisk, saves carrying around usb devices and gallery is nice and works well with iphoto.

You can get most of what mobilme offers for free with other services (Dropbox, Picasso, Flickr, etc) but if you want a single clean interface where everything is easy find and navigate and integrates smoothly with your phone and desktop then you really can't beat the mobileme service.

IamMetaldave

You mightn't, but I do!

You said it yourself, it's everything in one. Also, I recently erased all my contacts by accident and didn't care a sync with MobileMe and they we all back a minute later. That's awesome.