Since the introduction of Apples “kill switch” preventing iPhones from being wiped or services being disabled while “find my phone” service is configured, iPhone theft has dropped dramatically. Giving owners the ability to render their phones stolen at the push of a button, turns a high value device into something a little harder to sell on.
Microsoft and Google have both recently announced they’re planning on following suit, and introducing similar systems into their own handset models.
Google recently launched their very own find my phone type system, which proved to be a little buggy at times. It’s believed that this system will gain the additional functionality of being able to disable phones on users request. Something Apple have been doing for sometime now.
This will be closely followed by a tightly bing maps integrated system by the guys over at Microsoft.
It would be great to fully stamp out phone theft, or at least make phones seem less desirable to thieves. Although this is properly unlikely to stop opportunist thieves it may stamp out some crime.