thank you for this: I routinely 'lose' my i-phone (my kids love to play with it and forget where they last left it :))

I lost my phone few weeks ago (not iPhone) and then I bought iPhone to replace it. When I was synching things for the first night it asked me if I want to do it. I signed up for it immediatelly.

You also didnt mention that this can help you to see where your phone is on the map in real time and if its not connected to internet it will email you as soon as it has been located.

I wonder though if someone was to steal or find your phone, could they just disable findmyiphone in the settings and then you wouldnt be able to wipe it anymore?

it's active on my phone, as is google latitude. Means I know where my phone is 24hrs a day and it's logged. Now no one will want to be around me ;-). 

Yeah, I had this installed on my HTC - which was recently stolen.. however it seems thiefs are not stupid and they did something to it, because I could never locate the HTC after it was stolen.. but at least I could wipe it..

One more thing for those reading this thread that had their Iphone stolen: my insurance company reimbursed the cost of the Iphone! I did not have a special insurance, I made a claim under the household insurance, which has a "theft outside the house" clause. I am mentioning this because at times, we pay premiums for insurance and we do not know all the clauses and then we do not make claims when we have a right to do so...

I am not sure if I will now get my HTC reimbursed, also, maybe 2 in 2 months is too many?! :-)

doesnt work on some older iphones... ie mine ... dont know how to activate the "mobile me" section... which is needed for this app.

anyway thanks for the heads up Zonk.

@charlie dude, i have the oldest iPhone (2g) and there are options. It works on mine. Maybe you haven't updated it far enough. But, call me, I'll work it out for you.

it seems that the free Find My iPhone option can only be setup on an iPhone 4, iPod Touch (4th gen) or iPad. But....

You can use another device (like the one's at the Apple Store!) to set up Find My iPhone and then, once it's activated, configure your iPhone 3g/3gs. An extra step or two, but worth the effort. I can help, if needed.

"Find My iPhone" function is also within iCloud if you use iCloud.

Once you set up iCloud within your iPhone, you can set Find My iPhone" function "on/off" simply moving the small slide from within the iPhone ("iCloud" in the Settings). Then, one app space is not occupied on the phone screen :-) One app memory is also saved. :-)

To find your lost iPhone, you can login the iCloud website, click on Find My iPhone. And there, a map will appear and start searching your iPhone, if your iPhone is connected and the switch of Find My iPhone of your iPhone (within the iCloud setting) had been left set to "on" .

To use iCloud, you can use simply your APPLE ID. No need to creat an extra account.

It is also better NOT to create iCloud "EMAIL" account (the website will ask you to or not to when you first login the web). Personally, iCloud EMAIL account is useless if you already have several EMAIL accounts.

Besides, APPLE never allows "deleting/closing" iCloud EMAIL account once it is created. It has now been an issue by customers against it. (If you can't delete the account, people who know it keep sending emails to your iCloud account. What are you gonna do, if you don't (want to) use iCloud EMAIL anymore? This is the reason of the recent complaints to APPLE these days... (I was just learning these on websites about iPhone the other day as I have just bought one.) Again, you can use iCloud and can access YOUR iCloud website page with your already existing APPLE/iTunes ID.

iPhone4s

@liondiver thanks for the update. When I first wrote this, iCloud didn't exist.

However, I strongly disagree with not setting up iCloud email. There is no reason *not* to, even if you have other email addresses. There are no negatives for creating an @icloud.com account, and some useful positives.

While it's true that at the moment, there is no way to cancel an @icloud.com email address, that's because it's connected to the iCloud service. So, the real question is if you can cancel an iCloud account, which is it appears can't be done at the moment, either.

But, fret not, I'm sure in due time, they will provide that service.

Meanwhile, relax and enjoy your technology.

@Zonker: Thanks.

I do hope that Apple will eventually accept the client's own decision whether keeping the EMAIL account or not of iCloud. I read on websites that some people are realy annoyed by not being able to close or put it "inactivate" either so that someone else who found the login info her/his iCould EMAIL accout are accessing all emails of the authentic account holder. I am simply using using my email account that I am using for the Apple ID and therefore for myself I find no use of having iCloud EMAIL account...

And I thank you again, Zonker, for your answer to my other technical question I asked you directly! Appreciated! 

The week I left the US, me and my fiancee witnessed an armed robbery outside our apartment window. The very minute the police got there, and found out an iPhone was stolen, they asked "do you have Find My iPhone working?".

These were Oakland California Police. Oakland has the highest amount of confrontational and armed robbery in the USA. So you would think these are the most experienced police out there! Even they know this technology works good!