iPad on the road, part IV: Lost my iPad, help!

No, this is not a genuine plea for assistance. As I head home from a January’s worth of travel, I have not lost my iPad. The same was not true, however, of J-Term last year. On a flight to Atlanta, to connect with a flight to Rome for a J-Term class, I foolishly left my brand new iPad mini in the seat pocket of the plane. By the time I figured it out, my flight to Rome was about to close the door, and I didn’t have time to run back to the previous gate.

I filled out all the appropriate paperwork for the airline lost and found, but no one was very encouraging. The track record for retrieving lost electronics is not good.

I did, however, go to the find my iPhone/iPad app shortly after I returned from Italy. This app is probably already on your iPad, but if you can’t find it, search on the app store and it will either tell you to open it, or let you download it.

Once you activate the app, you can do several things including:

• You can have your iPad emit a loud noise which is very convenient if you have misplaced it around the house or lost your phone in the woods while looking for errant golf balls.
• You can specifically locate your device on a map within a fairly precise radius
• You can put up a notice on the screen saying, “This iPad has been lost, please contact the owner right away.”
• You can completely wipe your iPad clean so that any confidential information on it is erased. Obviously, if you do so, you are giving up hope of having the device returned.

All of these options require that the iPad is charged and online. In my case, when I first tried the app, it was not online. I could not find it on the map, but I did submit the “lost message” on it. Since it was a new device, there really wasn’t anything confidential on it, but I had pretty much given up hope that it would ever reappear.

Then about three weeks later, I received an email stating that my iPad had been located. I went to the map, and saw that it was on the grounds of Six Flags outside of Atlanta. By locating that spot on Google earth and then using the “street level” view, I could see that the iPad was in a building right next to the Six Flags Security Office.

I took a chance, called that office, and spoke to a very helpful officer who listened to my story and said he would look into it. About an hour later, I got a call from a woman who said she had bought the iPad on Craig’s List, and didn’t know anything about it being lost or stolen. We communicated a few more times, and about three days later, my stray iPad returned home. It was a technological and humanitarian wonderment.

I was very fortunate on a number of fronts. First, whoever took my iPad off of the plane didn’t immediately take it to someone who could wipe off my information. Second, the fact that the security officer looked into the matter for me. I’ve heard that police can be reluctant to try to chase down stolen iPads even if people can show them right where they are located. Finally, the woman who had my iPad, regardless of how she came to  have it, did the right thing in contacting me and sending it back. I sent her a restaurant gift certificate for her trouble and expense.

Overall, I recommend that you make sure “Find my iPhone” is installed on all you Apple devices. If your iPad is your only Apple device, you can log in with your Apple ID on any Apple device and use the locator function. It’s definitely worth having, especially if you just have trouble keeping track of your phone, or your golf balls.