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As per title I found an iPhone yesterday. How do I get it back to it's owner? It's locked, but has power.
Any ideas? Ta
"Hey Siri, who's phone is this?" might work.
Keep it powered up, they may try to call it?
if its got power still, then it'd show up on findmyphone for the owner. they see where it is on a map, can put a message up on the screen, play a sound or remote wipe it.
if they don't have it enabled, stick a post on your local facebook group..
Take it to an apple store. They'll reunited it with the owner pretty rapidly.
Or they'll be using a different iPhone to do the find my phone thing, which will still work better with it on.
edit - too slow!
If they have it set up then multiple clicks on the power button (about 5), will come up with various things including "Medical ID". If you swipe that is should show an emergency contact.
Don't go mad on the clicking as I think at some point it just dials 999!
Hand it in to the local police - if nobody claims it, you'll get to keep the (bricked) phone.
My wife showed me that we could see notifications on the phone, and there was 'your picture from 4 years ago' selfie, so we knew what the owner looked like.
Then I saw a missed call notification from "mum -surname-"
Then we thought that maybe the popstar name on the phone cover was actually the owners real name, so I added that the name plus -surname- from above and did a google search found the owner as a member of a local sports club.
Called the sports club, who called the phone owners partner who called me, and confirmed it was the right phone. The grateful owner popped round to collect the phone and she left me a box of chocolates!
I feel like a clever & smug chocolate eating sleuth now.
Lots of like 🙂
I feel like a clever & smug chocolate eating sleuth now
You are indeed ,well done 👍🙃
It's five taps of the sleep button to get the medical ID up. If that has nothing, then the easiest thing is to just leave it on (charge it, if you can), post on local facebook groups, and the owner will hopefully do findmyphone on it.
Found a Nokia type phone out once cycling with some friends, we could obviously use it so spoke to someone who arranged to collect, as the driver drove away they said 'bet you'd have kept if if it was an iphone' (early days of iphones). At that point we wished we'd dropped it in a bucket of water.
Enjoy the chocolates though 🙂
I found an iphone a bit back and while looking up the apple store number to try to find the owner, the phone put up a message on the screen with a number to call,which was the owners number. Duly called and she came by, picked up the phone and brought me a box of chocs as a thank you.
I'm not sure if thats a feature you'd need to activate yourself should you lose it.
The five taps is a good shout, but I assume its a newer thing as my iPhone7 does not do it (I just tried).
I found an unlocked phone last year and looked at the text messages and sent one to the last recipient saying I had found the phone could they let the owner know. She called me immediately and said it was her husbands so we agreed a meet time/place so I could hand it back to him.
It's nice to be nice 🙂
Found a bashed up Android phone while riding near Filey last week, touchscreen not working. Put some charge in and turned it off and on again. Someone rang it within an hour or two and I was just able to read their number from the screen. Rang them back and organised how to get it back to them. Quite impressed it had lasted on the car roof from the seafront car park to the second village inland.
"Hey Siri, call mum/dad/work/wife etc" - well press the button and say it I mean 🙂
For an iPhone 11 it'll be simultaneous long press of the power and volume button to bring up medical ID & emergency contact - assuming they've set it up!
Because I can read past the first two posts, 🙄
Well done OP, you enjoy those chocolates.
I found an iPhone at the bottom of Snowdon. Kept it in my pocket and an hour or so later it rang, it was the owners partner, they were just at the summit so I arranged to meet them later that afternoon. They took us all to the pub and brought us a couple of rounds. It’s nice to be nice!😀
Hand it in to the local police – if nobody claims it, you’ll get to keep the (bricked) phone.
No, they won’t. They’re not interested in lost property any more. The correct course of action has already been taken above.
Well done to all those who managed to return lost items to their owners, too.
I lost my mobile years ago, a young lady who worked in a pub in town picked it up walking across a town centre park, found my work number on it, phoned them, and left her name and where she worked, so I was able to get it back. Gave her a fiver for her honesty.
Even further back, I was at a gig at Bristol University SU Anson Rooms, and I noticed a watch lying on the floor among loads of other debris and picked it up. The offices were all closed, only security staff still there, so I took it home. Checked it later, and it was a Casio with a sort of data bank in it, with the owner’s contact info, including his mum, so I phoned her, and told her who I was, and the circumstances I’d found the watch. He wasn’t there, but was due back home soon, so I packed it up and mailed it to her, got a message later, he was chuffed to bits it had been found, and not crushed in the pit that had developed behind me during the gig.
On a late train home from Manchester many years ago, a load of people got off at a stop and I picked up a newspaper left behind on a seat. Underneath it was a phone, obviously fallen out of the pocket of the person sitting there. Nokia thing so I could unlock it and see names. Nothing obvious in there to call, no Mum or Home or anything so I left it on. Strangely, a lot of the names were "Halle".
Anyway, the owner eventually phoned it so I told him how I'd found it, he gave me his address and I took it around there next day.
The "Halle" part of the names in the address book related to the Halle Orchestra in Manchester and the phone's owner actually knew my Dad (also a professional musician who's played with Halle many times). Small world!
Found a pbone on the floor in Blackpool once. Rang 'mum' from contacts and said I'd found it, I'd leave it at the till in McDonald's for them. Mad woman started shouting at me demanding to know where her daughter was. Err...
Found a phone in a playground when I was with my 2 year old. Looked on it for clues and it was clearly a dealers phone. So I texted a load of their contacts to say it was being left at the Police station. Dropped it in with a note on it to say it had interesting messages on it.