The Great iPhone Snatch
21st April 2011
Cringely meets the Common Man.
I was in Los Angeles last Friday for TV meetings and lost my iPhone 4. It was on my belt and suddenly it wasn’t. Then in one of those deja vu experiences I noticed that I was only steps from an Apple Store, so I went inside to trace my iPhone using the Where is my iPhone? app. But my iPhone was nowhere.
Understand it was fully-charged and I had been using it less than 10 minutes before. My phone was nowhere to be found.
Sadly the kids at the Apple Store knew far too well what had happened because they hear the story every day. My phone was most likely stolen straight from its clip on my belt by a professional iPhone 4 thief. The moment it was grabbed from my belt the thief handed it to an accomplice. Within a minute the phone was powered-off and untraceable. They didn’t want my data, just my iPhone.
My friend Bill, hearing my story, said it is even worse in New York where thieves will steal the iPhone 4 right out of your hand, running off into the inevitable crowd of pedestrians. That will teach us not to use our mobile smart phones when, well, mobile.
From purse snatching to phone snatching. Next we’ll see iPhones on those wire tethers they use in paranoid companies to secure computer equipment.
April 21st, 2011 at 21:16
Tethers – we had to implement them when training in Panama and a SSG left his rifle leaning against a tree, not to be found until 2,400 man hours later. Everybody called them ‘idiot cords”.