stolen phone

[bean92]

Hi,

My iphone5 was stolen.  Unfortunately I never installed the find my iphone app.  So I am unable to trace it.  I had my phone deactivated and the serial number reported to the police so it is listed as stolen.  Is there anyway I can have it activated again and then somehow traced?  Also since my phone is listed as stolen can it be reactivated or used in anyway by someone else.

I appreciate the help

Thanks

Ryan

[crelin]

It seems you answered your own question.  You would've had to have an app such as Find My Iphone installed and/or enabled before hand.

[mikedamirault]

The Find My iPhone tracking software is actually part of iOS itself, not in the app

The app is meant to be installed on a secondary iDevice (say an iPad or another iPhone using the same Apple ID) then used to track the lost/stolen iPhone

If you don't have another iDevice to install the Find My iPhone app on, you can still track your iPhone by going to www.icloud.com and use Find My iPhone from there

As long as your iPhone is on and working, regardless if it has service or not (as long as there is some sort of data connection, like wifi), and your Apple ID is still logged in on it (on iCloud), you should still be able to track your phone

[rcschnoor]

If Find My iPhone was never turned on when activating the device, you would not be able to track the device with this method.

[mikedamirault]

True, but downloading the app wouldn't do anything to change that

It's a common misconception that in order to make an iPhone traceable, you have to download the Find My iPhone app, when the app is really nothing more than the receiver, as the tracker is in iOS itself

It is possible that some iPhone users already have Find My iPhone set up and don't even know it, sadly the opposite is also possible, where the user doesn't have Find My iPhone set up, downloads the app, and thinks it's set up, only to find out, when they do need it, it's not

I think it would relieve some confusion if Apple put the Find My iPhone settings on the main settings screen, so regardless if the user downloaded the app or not, they would know the ability to track it is possible without the app