Just wondering what people think about this as I normally lock mine but I'm starting to think that I probably shouldn't, I don't have anything that personal, and don't really care if anyone reads my messages. But with the new features / apps that can help track your phone, isn't it better to leave it unlocked in the hope the sucker who steals it / honourable person who finds it and returns it connects to the internet without disabling the feature?
I always lock mine, just in case I leave it behind in a bar or something. I don't particularly want some random stranger reading my emails / SMS, or going through my photos / contacts etc.
At least with the iPhone, the Find my Phone feature works when it's locked in any case. If I left it unlocked, someone could easily Factory Reset the phone, thus making this feature useless.
The only downside to locking the phone is the small time it takes to tap the code in when you want to use it. Considering the risks of leaving it unlocked, for me this is a negligible price to pay.
Yeh I think I had a lapse of logic there... I think I'll keep on locking it... just means I would never get it back if I lose it as noone will likely be able to get into it... I also have the feature to wipe it out completely after 10 pin attempts.
I have to add that I did once find an iPhone and after going through the contacts I managed to call the rightful owner and returned it. I did have a peak through the photos though...
The "Find my Iphone" app has a facility to remotely wipe the phone should it get stolen, it's active all the time, locked or not. You can also use it to find your phone if it disappeared down the sofa by getting it to make a sound.
This will only work when the phone is on of course, and when its connected to the internet which in most cases it is... unless you're abroad which renders it useless as I have roaming swithced off.
Even if you have a dumb phone without any compromising pictures of you and/or your wife/girlfriend/mistress/man-friend/sister/whatever, do you really want some punk kids who find your phone in a bar to start prank calling your friends/family/clients from your phone?
If you lose it - and I have, once or twice - you can just call your own number a few times and hope the finder answers. If they're prone to return it, there's a good chance they'll pick up.
I found a phone in a company carpark. By giving the IMEA number to Sunrise, they were able to reunite the phone with its owner. ( A friend of my son's found an iPhone, tried the same with Orange. They were not interested, he handed it to the police, and it is now his phone as it was never picked up ).
Even if you don't keep any sensitive information on your phone (although, some information turns out to be sensitive once you realize it's missing ...): if your phone's unlocked, the thief will be able to place calls over over the planet with your phone. Assuming you also have the SIM-PIN set, he or she won't be able to place calls even if the phone is re-initialized or the SIM-card is placed in another phone.
The biggest damage is usually caused by expensive calls placed by the thief. The rest is covered by your home insurance. Some mobile providers (Sunrise, for example) offer call-protection for an additional monthly fee.
I never used to lock my phone until someone broke into my office and stole it. I chased the bastard all the way from Petersgraben down to Marktplatz in Basel but lost him there. I managed to get my SIM-card blocked immediately, so he wasn't able to call his friends in the Balkans (I got a close look at him, he definitely was from that area - not just bashing foreigners here).
I was only mentioning that to stress the importance of using a SIM-lock in order to decrease the chance of having expensive calls abroad show up on your phone bill. My brother's backpack was stolen at the railway station in Zurich - and he got hundreds of Fr. worth of calls to Albania on his phone bill. That was several years ago - I guess today those calls don't cost that much anymore
I doubt that, but who knows :-) Again, I didn't mean to turn this into an SVP-mindset-thread. I merely don't want 2-hour Inmarsat calls to Antarctica on my phone bill when my phone gets stolen.