Thread by @DowneyJD

Has anyone ever recovered a stolen iPhone/iPad using the Find My Phone app?

My iPad was stolen from Shoreditch on Friday and I’ve been following it’s adventures today.

It started out on a park bench in the grounds of St Leonard’s church and then went to Mikkeller for a pint.

After that, it was seen on Hoxton St, (possibly) on the way to Monte’s for a salt beef bagel before moving on to (probably) Ceviche by Old St for either a pisco sour or some anticuchos.

Right now, it looks like it’s at the George & Vulture on Pitfield St.

I miss my iPad but it’s bittersweet because it’s clearly having a great time.

What to do though to get it back? Do I send in a SWAT team to @cevicheuk Old St and hope they find the f•cker that nicked it?

🤷‍♂️

Now where is it..?! It’s 10.30pm which is far too early for breakfast at Fabrique. Is there some after hours club on Dunloe St that I don’t know about? 🤨

My iPad is on the move again.

• 06.26 at Charlotte Rd.
• 07.22 at Old St.
• 08.21 at Pitfield St

If I didn’t have such a busy day, I could be out there with tracker dogs to find it.

Coming to terms with the fact that my iPad may not have been stolen but has left me for a better life in a more central London location. 😕

For a minute there I thought we had the f•cker. My iPad has been on the move again. Not having as much fun as yesterday evening but looks like he put a bet on in Ladbrokes on East St before heading off to the Tesco on Bunhill Row either for some fags or to get something for tea.

Looks like my iPad is spending the night in the same flat as last night - on Dunloe St right by Hoxton Overground.

So, there’s (sort of) a happy ending to my iPad story. It has been missing (but still alive) for six days now.

After tracking its movements all day yesterday - moving in and around a tight loop of regular stops in Shoreditch, I figured out that it was either with:

(a) a catering student at Hackney Community College who works at Ceviche in the evenings; or
(b) a homeless person wandering the area - moving from park bench to soup kitchen to Ladbroke’s.

Last night, we decided to go out and find the thief.🤨

We thought we had him at Tesco’s.

We just missed him by M&S but then lost him north of Finsbury Square.

Always moving, evading capture. Blending in with the night crowd. Too many people at this time of day.

I drove home and had a chicken kiev.

I woke at 06.30 and saw immediately that my iPad was on the move again.

Great Eastern St at 06.17. Worship St at 06.47. Our office is right between the two.

The bastard is taunting me. No student gets up this early. It must be with a homeless person.

At 07.06 he was on Leonard St, yds from our office.

Quick shower, jump in the car and drive down from Dalston to meet my mate Rick.

We would track him, get close, remote sound the iPad’s alarm to fix his location and then POUNCE.

It’s 07.56. Moving again. Corsham St now.

Then Pitfield St. Moving north but where is he heading?

We drove across Hoxton St and south down Pitfield towards our target. He’d stopped in St John’s churchyard and we sensed that this was our chance.

I parked the car and we ran into the churchyard through the west gate.

I’m not making any of this up.

Rick and I are running now, confident we’ve got him. We circle around the back of the church and slow our approach.

THERE HE IS!

He’s alone, standing over a park bench pulling something out of a plastic bag.

But there is a tall, iron fence between us and we can’t get to him this way. He hasn’t seen yet. We double back, circling round the south side of the church and ready our strike.

The App has located him with pinpoint accuracy.

He’s an older man. Maybe the same age as me but obviously homeless with a collection of plastic bags and a black backpack.

“Hello,” I said. “I think you’ve got something of mine.” I pointed to his backpack. “In there.”

He didn’t understand. East European but hard to tell where.

I reached out to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you. Can I have my iPad back please?”

Still nothing but Rick was armed with the ‘Find My iPhone’ App and ready to hit ‘Play Sound’ which would trigger the alarm.

Rick hit ‘Play Sound’ and my IPad start to beep loudly from the black backpack on the park bench.

There it was. My iPad was RIGHT THERE in his backpack. I’d followed its movements for 6 days and we’d finally tracked it down to a backpack on a park bench in a churchyard in Hoxton. Incredible.

I reached in to pull it out. “This is mine,” I said. “Thanks for looking after it.”

And here it is. Back where it belongs, with me. It still had 37% battery life and was unscathed after a six day staycation in Shoreditch.

Thank f•ck for that.

So hats off to @Apple for the brilliant battery life (you don’t hear that very often) and high five to whoever it was that created this remarkable App.👏

I didn’t get the homeless guy’s name and he was a bit flummoxed by the whole thing but he was fine and it was all friendly.

Lots of great comments and stories from people. Happy that so many of you are enjoying it. 👍

A few people have been asking about how my iPad went missing in the first place so here is the back story.

On Friday, I parked my car on Curtain Road in Shoreditch around 6pm. When I came back to it at 2am, the back window had been smashed in and my work bag, with iPad, laptop and old school diary, had been nicked despite being out of sight.

I didn’t expect to see any of that stuff again and didn’t think to check ‘Find My iPhone’ until Sunday when I saw that the iPad was still on and trackable.

At 6pm I got a call from a homeless hostel by Brick Lane. They had my work bag and had found my number in my diary.

I went straight down there and met the homeless guy who said he’d found my bag by Liverpool St on Saturday. He thought it was important to someone and tracked me down with the hostel’s help. I said thanks, shook his hand and gave him £20. He was very pleased and so was I. 🤝

So in the end I’ve got everything back (apart from my knackered old laptop which needed replacing anyway) and I’ve met one (and maybe two? - hard to know about the churchyard guy) very helpful homeless guy + seen the good work that hostels do.

London is GREAT. 👊