Track and Recover iPhone via Theft-Recovery app

Without a doubt, iPhone is THE MOST popular smartphone in the world and hence we the risk of thefts increases proportionately. We had seen 10 Ways to Track and Recover Your Lost/Stolen iPhone sometime back and one of the commentators, asked me about Orbicule which was not part of the list. When I started digging up more information on Orbicule, I realized that I had made a mistake by not including it in my original list.

So what? Here is a separate dedicated post to introduce this wonderful theft recovery app for iPhones. Mind you, if you have come here looking for an already lost iphone or an already stolen iPhone, there is nothing much I or this app for that matter anyone else can do. This post must act as a warning for every iPhone/iPod Touch user to start safeguarding their loved gadgets.

Orbicule’s Undercover is the leading theft-recovery app for Mac over the years and now, they have an app available for iPhone and iPod Touch gadgets. Undercover is the first iPhone app that uses push notifications to track and locate your stolen phone.

Track your Stolen iPhone

Undercover can help you locate any lost or stolen iPhone or iPod. Undercover can covertly transmit your device’s location and IP address to authorities when you report it as lost or stolen.
Upon registration, you will receive your own Undercover web account at UndercoverCenter. Every time the Undercover application is launched, the phone’s location and IP information is stored in your web account. You can then login to your account to track the device.
Thanks to the clever use of push notifications, the latest version (1.5) even allows you to remotely launch Undercover on the stolen iPhone in order to track the thief’s location. Undercover also comes in handy when you have lost your iPhone: as soon as you set a message for the finder, the phone will ring and Undercover will display the alert on top of any application that might be running. When the finder views the message, Undercover will transmit your phone’s location.

I suggest you enter device-identifiable IDs (WiFi address, IMEI, ICCID and serial number, all found in General->About section of iPhone’s Settings app) into the “iPhone info” section of the web interface.

Reporting a Stolen or Lost iPhone

When Undercover is launched on a stolen iphone, the app pretends to be loading a game. This should encourages a thief to wait, giving the app necessary time to obtain accurate location. Even if a thief quits the app, it will transmit last most accurate location to the cloud. This is assuming the device is ‘online’. Even if it is ‘offline’ it will cache the location details and transmit to the cloud whenever the device goes ‘online’ at a later time! Fantastic!
Access the web interface with a desktop browser to report a stolen device. You can also enter the case number and police contact information, including an email address. The next time Undercover is launched it displays a custom message that you can set in the web interface when you reported a lost device. The finder (assuming a good Samaritan and not a thief) will also see a handy Call Owner button that can be tapped to place a phone call to you, also set in the web interface.
Whenever the cloud receives location of the device reported either stolen or lost, you’ll receive an email alert.

Does having undercover is enough?

Unfortunately, the answer is NO. Undercover isn’t bullet-proof solution and there are several limitations that you need to be aware of. Following are the limitations I can think of:
1. It is always expected that the thief/finder runs the Undercover app atleast once.
2. If you have enabled PIN on your iPhone, the service won’t work because thieves need to be able to access iPhone’s apps in order to launch Undercover.
3. A clever thief will remove the Undercover app from your device manually.
But then, Orbicule claims that, their free helper app – FOUND increases the recovery chances.

Helpers applications work like ‘honeypots’ and they know how to send your phone’s location information to your Undercover account, just like the regular Undercover app. So even if the thief removes Undercover from the iPhone, the helper apps can still locate a lost or stolen device.

But again, it is expected that Found app is launched on a lost or stolen device at-least once. The good thing is, it just costs $4.99, which is like lesser than insurance cover! And Orbicule promises money-back guarantee if Undercover fails to recover your stolen iPhone! This should encourage you, isn’t it?
Download Undercover to recover lost / stolen iPhone (iTunes Link)