Published in Mobiles

iPhone App turning fanboys into vigilantes

by on05 May 2014


 
Find my iPhone app causing face offs

The Find My iPhone app is encouraging Apple fanboys to face off with the people who nick their shiny toys and coppers are worried that it will only be a matter of time before one of them is killed. Find My iPhone tells the owner where the phone is at the moment using GPS tracking apps. Part of the problem is that coppers are not checking out the stolen phones themselves fast enough and as a result, the fanboys are facing off against the criminals.

George Gascón, the San Francisco district attorney and a former police chief told the New York Times that it opened up the opportunity for people to take the law into their own hands, and they can get themselves into deep water if they go to a location where they should not go. Part of the problem is that the fanboys and girls arm themselves to go collecting their phone. Most of the time it is with hammers which is often the daftest of things to take to a gun fight. 

Other problems occur when the app does not work all the time. A New Jersey man ended up in custody himself after he used GPS technology to track his lost iPhone and attacked the wrong man, mistaking him for the thief. Police departments have devoted more resources to fight smartphone theft, but most cannot chase every stolen device right away so Apple fanboys are just placing themselves in danger. According to the Times they are also not listening to police calls that “it is just a phone.”

It is part of the Apple faith than an iPhone is much more than a phone, otherwise they would not need to spend so much on it, it is a way of life which makes them more than human.

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