
Find your lost phone with Android Device Manager - srathi
http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2013/08/find-your-lost-phone-with-android.html
======
rlu
This reminds me of a rather interesting design decision I encountered with
Windows Phone this summer. I'm still undecided as to whether it is a good
design or not.

So, over the summer I was traveling through Europe and lost my phone in Italy.
I have two factor authentication on for my Microsoft account so this was
somewhat of a problem seeing as every way to authenticate myself was with the
phone (text, email, auth/code app).

Then I remembered I could go online and locate my phone through some web-app
on windowsphone.com. This seemed like a terrific idea. So I went there, and,
unsurprisingly but disappointingly, was unable to login because that app was
not excluded from two factor authentication.

It was extremely frustrating to say the least.

~~~
srathi
Google gives 10 emergency codes that you can keep in your wallet and use them
to access your account in these kind of situations. Does Microsoft have a
similar feature?

~~~
rlu
Not that I know of.

The real culprit of my misfortune though was that my trusted devices (which
wouldn't require 2nd auth) got erased because when I got asked to do two
factor authentication in the hostel's computer I clicked on the "I don't have
access to my phone anymore" link (seemed very fitting!) which then let me
change my verification options (e.g. add a 2nd email address that they can
send a link to, rather than have them text me a code). This got me into a
weird state (which I think they told me ahead of time but I went through it
anyways) where it takes 30 days for these new verification options to override
the old ones. You can of course cancel this - provided that you have access to
your old verification options (i.e. phone in my case) :)

That's a good design for sure (prevents a hacker from changing verification
options without me noticing). However, what is a terrible design, and I don't
know if it's a bug or not, is that when you change these verification options
it also decides to _erase every single one of your already trusted devices_.

This meant that now, instead of only being unable to login to anything on
random computers (e.g. hostels) I was unable to use any of the MS services on
my Surface which I had brought on the trip.

Thank goodness that this happened near the end of the trip and not the
beginning. I was only left without email, skydrive etc. for ~2 weeks.

------
kevincrane
1) That is an awesome feature, especially being able to ring on max volume
when you've silenced your phone earlier. Given my phone is usually on silent,
having friends call it to find it between sofas has never worked for me.

2) I _hate_ it when websites hijack my browser's hotkeys. Google, Alt-Left
goes back a page in your history in basically every browser I've used, why did
you think it necessary to rewire that for Blogspot?

------
clicks
Thank heavens this feature has finally arrived.

People are sometimes surprised when I tell them this is _the_ number one most
important feature to me. I sometimes need to give my little siblings a ride
from/to their workplace -- it's a great thing to be able to use iPhone's 'Find
my Friends' to see where they are so I know where to pick them up. Or to see
where my significant other is if she's coming from a different city (and when
she asks for directions, I can actually be of help because I know where she
actually is).

Now, if only iOS and Android had better interoperability... so that I could
use my iPhone's 'Find my Friends' app to easily locate my little brother's
Android phone.

~~~
mtgx
You could've used Latitude for that...well, until recently.

~~~
amarraja
I think you still can but via the G+ application. It's a shame they butchered
such an amazing feature just to try and get a few more people using G+.

------
wasd
Looks like Google is taking a cue from the many apps that provide a similar
service like Android Lost[1]. I hope this is useful for recovering stolen
phones but I've read reports that even with the MobileMe location of an
i(Phone, Pod) the police don't necessarily go after it[2].

[1] [http://www.androidlost.com/](http://www.androidlost.com/)

[2] [http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-14/the-cops-
are...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-14/the-cops-arent-going-
to-find-your-stolen-iphone)

~~~
scarecrowbob
Indeed. My wife an I were traveling in Brazil and her MBP was stolen.

We located the computer near Sao Paulo (and it was stolen in Maceio!) and
talked to a computer repair guy who admitted to having it (though he
ostensibly had "just given it back to the owner") even though it was just
listed on the local equivalent of CL.

Of course the police wouldn't do anything... not that I blame them-- I
certainly couldn't expect them to go searching some random LAN shop...

So this kind of location information is probably only useful for locating
devices that are held by people who want you to have them back (ie you left it
at a party or somethign).

~~~
keeperofdakeys
My friend has had this work when his laptop was stolen, in Australia. He had a
program that allowed him to interact with the system, find the MAC address of
the wireless router, and use google's database to get an address. After
handing the information to the police, they went there, and retrieved his
laptop. He wasn't told any details about what happened to the person, probably
due to privacy concerns.

~~~
scarecrowbob
That's good-- maybe there is hope after all...

------
oakaz
Last year, my android phone was stolen and all I wanted was to remove the
content or disable the phone remotely.

They claim it's possible in a control panel that lists all the android devices
belong to you. But that control panel listed none of the devices I used. None
of them.

When I contacted with Google, they never replied me.

I don't know the majority experience but each Google service works really
buggy for me. The Youtube account I used for years were removed with all the
content, I have two Google+ accounts that belong to same e-mail but I can't
login to the first one, and almost all of the Google services except Gmail and
Search is disabled for me. Yes, I enabled everything in the control panel.

I would never ever trust any Google service.

------
mtgx
I just hope they add some of the great features that Cerberus has, such as
taking photos with the front camera, and then e-mailing you the picture (in
case someone steals it).

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lsdroid.ce...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lsdroid.cerberus)

------
neves
Wow, finally a reason to buy Google Glass! Hope now they will deliver Google
Car Keys₢

------
ars
> There will also be an Android app to allow you to easily find and manage
> your devices.

???

You use an Android app to find your Android? I guess if you have multiple of
them, but I hope they make it available others ways too.

~~~
srathi
This is to use it on a friend's device to find your device. Apple also
provides a similar app.

------
Metrop0218
So does this mean that Google is the last major Mobile OS development company
to provide this service (behind Apple and Microsoft, respectively)?

What took them so long? You'd figure that it would've come quickly considering
Google's emphasis on navigation.

~~~
footpath
Google's been offering this service for years, but only for paid Google Apps
accounts:

[https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/1235372?hl=en](https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/1235372?hl=en)

~~~
Metrop0218
Eh that's weak though. What's the rationale for holding this from non paying
customers? It's not like anyone would pay for Google Apps because of this
feature.

