Why You Must Have Droid or iPhone 'Find My Phone' Apps.

Both Droid and iPhone have 'find my phone' apps that are absolutely essential, exceedingly useful, and some are free. The only trick is that you must have downloaded these apps before you lose your phone!

My husband and I just learned this lesson the hard way; a few minutes of prevention could have helped us find, not only his iPhone 4, but also his stolen truck which had his phone tucked in the console.

A few nights ago, our small town hosted a rodeo which brought about 2500 visitors to our quiet little community. My husband was one of the people helping with the concessions at this big event. He loaded his Ford truck with all the food and supplies necessary to grill burgers and brats for about 9 hours and hundreds of customers. Needless to say, he was exhausted when, at about 2 o'clock in the morning, he started to reload the truck before heading home. He left the truck unlocked, with the keys inside, between trips. "Nobody was around," he said.

Well, obviously somebody was around because the truck was gone when he returned, burdened with buns, to the scene. Our truck was gone and with it: my husband's iPhone, his wallet, his credit cards, his drivers license, his house keys, his business keys, his ipod, etc., etc. Around 3 a.m. he arrived home to tell me the awful news and to call the police. The first thing the sheriff asked, after hearing the whole story, was: "Do you have 'Find My Phone' on your iPhone 4?"

You see, had we downloaded this free and simple application onto his phone before the truck (and phone) was stolen, we could have simply used the phone's GPS feature to locate the stolen truck. As it was, nothing could be done except to keep looking and hope for the best. Oh why, oh why, had we not taken a moment to download a free application that would have enabled us to use modern technology to immediately locate the truck? Instead, we might as well have been in the dark ages. Indeed, I spent most of the night trying to find a way to use such features after the fact, but I met with one dead-end after the next. Bottom-line, download the applications before you need them!

This story actually has a happy ending...sort of. After keeping the sheriff and ourselves up almost all night, and almost causing me to have a heart attack or stroke, it turned out that our niece had thought it funny to take a little joyride in her uncle's truck...at 2 o'clock in the morning...for several hours. Haha...no, I'm not really laughing. I think I'd like to box her ears or something, only I don't really know how to box someone's ears.

In any case, if you have not done so already, download a cell phone application to help you locate a lost or stolen phone right now, really! There are many to choose from such as 'Find My iPhone,' 'Where's My Droid,' 'InstaMapper,' 'WaveSecure,' and 'Find My Phone'. What have you got to lose (aside from your phone, of course)?