Victoria O’Connor, a 19-year old woman from Iowa, found her stolen car with the help of Apple’s ‘Find My iPhone’ app. The teen had left her car running outside a QuickTrip on Monday. Luckily (or unluckily), she happened to leave her phone inside the car too.
The Des Moines Police force helped O’Connor track down her iPhone using the ‘Find My iPhone’ app that she used on a friend’s iPhone. The thieves had managed to turn off the phone, making it impossible to track. However, on Tuesday, morning the phone was turned on, which allowed it to be tracked to a local apartment. The car was found at this complex.
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O’Connor had been pretty much living in her car after a fire destroyed her apartment in September. Her keys and wallet were still missing. Nevertheless, the police are still positive that the belongings are present in one of the apartments.
After the incident, Des Moines police officer Sgt. Paul Parizek mentioned that technologies like the ‘Find My iPhone’ app do help the police solve a lot of these crimes. “Thieves are going to be thieves. So, the best thing you can do is don’t leave your car running unattended and take care of the things that are valuable to you,” he added.
Why the ‘Find My’ app works better on iOS 13
According to a report by KCCI Des Moines, O’Connor’s iPhone was reportedly running an older version of iOS. Had her phone been running iOS 13, the app would have been able to detect the phone even when it was offline.
Updating to iOS 13 is a must to improve the security aspect of your device. iOS 13 also brings some other key features like Dark Mode, street-level view for Maps, a revamped Photos app and updated privacy features.
