My iPhone is stolen! How to get it back?

[Vento]

My title describes my issue in just a single line. I had recently brought my new phone and was just understanding and loving its use. But before I could even spend a couple of weeks with it, I happened to lose it or should I say some *abuses* stole it and I don’t know how to find it now. I have heard, stolen phones can be tracked down with some installed applications. I am not aware of anything. I have lodged a complaint with the authorities. But is that of any help by any chance? I don’t know, how to go about this issue. How can we possibly track it down if at all that is possible at the first place?
If I cannot track it, I’ll have to shed some more dollars and buy another phone. That Iis not really an issue, but I don’t want it to lose now. So, I need to know what precautions needs to be taken so that the phone is not stolen.i mean, even if it is stolen, what precautions can help me get it back in a simpler way?
All advices/ suggestions/ recommendations/ solutions are thanked in advance!

[Aalap]

This is one of the worst things to happen, I tell you. Even I have been into such a situation and have regretted everything that I did not do to save my cell phone from being stolen or lost. However, even I was left with no option but to buy another phone and I did buy one.
By the way, I am expecting that you have installed and configured the Find My iPhone application on your iPhone, this is an assistance providing software which helps you locate your lost or misplaced iPhone. The application basically does the following in our attempt to find he cell phone

1. It is basically used to Locate the cell iPhone, iPad, iPadTouch or Mac on a map
2. It displays a message on the screen in case you can locate it because of the screen’s brightness or so
3. Even if the phone is set on silent mode, it plays sound on full volume for 2 minutes, helping a hidden phone.
4. It also assists you lock your cell phone remotely i.e. if you doubt the cell phone to have landed in wrong hands.
5. If you think locking them won’t help and those stupid people can easily unlock it, you can easily wipe your device with which you can delete all you personal information saved in it

One very important thing to remember is that, Find your iPhone is not a theft protection application it is just for regular losing of phone at the household level.

[Vento]

No I don’t have this installed in my system and which means, find my iPhone serves no purpose. Is there any other option I can find my phone? The Police authorities do not look concerned and are not at all interested in the investigation giveng me a lame reply of ‘We are trying our level best’. This is very disappointing and irritating but I don’t really think we have a go!
I had heard about this application quite before and was wanting to install it. But somehow, it wasn’t getting installed in my system only. Are there any requirement specification for installing this and if yes, what is it? Can you please enlist them down? Or maybe if I have installed and I don’t remember. Anyways, please enlist all the requirement to download and use this application

[Aalap]

Oh definitely! There is ofcourse a set of specifications requirements and I don’t think there’s any dual mind in determining if there was ever this application installation.
Anyways, going ahead with the requirement specifications for ‘Find My iPhone’, the following are them:
iOS 3.1.3 or higher version is requires if you are Mobile Me user and OS 5 or OS X Lion v10.7.2is requires if you are an iCloud user
iOS 5 and OS X provides free iCloud account, that is very much required or there exists a requirement of MobileMe
There should be active internet connection. In order to get located, the iPad with, iPad touch and mac should be connected to a reliable Wi-Fi network. Mac should be active as well.
Anyways, it looks like you have not installed this application into your device. If you would have done that you could never have forgotten it...and since even the police authorities doesn’t seem interested and are not really responding you should be planning to buy another phone. So let me introduce you to the installation and use of this application

- Firstly, you need to launch the App Store and download the ‘Find My iPhone’ application
- When the downloading is On, you need to do the following in order to activate the application

o Go to swttings to find a number of tabs following it
o Among the tabs, select Mail, Contacts, Calendar and add the MobileMe account
o It is absolutely possible to create a new Find My iPhone account on your iPhone 4, iPad or iPod (4th generation) which runs iOS 4.2 or above in it.
o On creation of an account, the authentication and qualification check of the device
o you can use your apple id and its password so as to activate the application Find My iPhone on corresponding device which is running iOS 4.2.

In order to locate the phone you should be following the below given steps and that will help you find it whenever you misplace it:
- As I have mentioned earlier, in order to find the cell phone, it needs to be configured with Find My iPhone before it is lost
- After that, go to www.me.com inside your web browser and then follow the instructions that follows
- Use the apple id or itunes account and log in to the page. Note, the choice between your apple id and itunes id depends on what id have you used while setting up the application
- As soon as you log in, find my iphone will start it’s work and will try ruinously to locate the devices.
- Through out it’s searching process, you will see on screen messages flashing and showing the progress in the process
- In case the device is turned off, it will show the place where it was located last and it wi;; update to current location on restarting
- In case, the device Is found,it will locate the position on the map by zooming and indicating the location with the help of a blue dot
- After this, you can possibly zoom in and out in different modes likethe hybrid mode, 3d mode all that are commonly available on any Google map
- As soon as your device is found you will find a window popping up over the blue dot, this window will lead you through the hunt then
- In case, it disappears because you clicked somewhere else on the page, you just need to click on the blue dot again to get it back.
- When you click the window, you will get various options to chose from which will help you track the phone

o The first and the most basic option is to send a message. This message can include data so as to hoe to return the phone to you
o You can also send a song which will play in full volume, it helps you find the phone in case of misplacement
o You can also chose to lock your phone by clicking on the lock button. This will lock your phone with an on-the-spot selected passcode

 To do this, click on the lock button and enter 4 digit code twice and then reclick on lock

o For even greater kind of security when you are assured, you are going to have a hard time finding it and the data is highly sensitive, simply delete the data

This data can be restored using the back up you have saved at some private place
- If you feel that the phone is being carried and is moving, you can click on the curved arrow on the top right corner and refresh the page to find the new location