Every once in a while, you hear a story where good prevails and the story ends with a “happily ever after”. This is one of those rare tales.
The story begins last friday night. A friend of mine named Keeton Coffman asked me to play his original music with him at a local Houston venue. I was happy to do it. I brought my iPad to the gig to use as sheet music for the songs I was less familiar with. We shared the stage with a band from Houston, and a band from College Station.
After we played, I packed up, went out with a friend for a bit, and went home to crash. The next morning I couldn’t find my iPad.
I figured I left it at the venue. I started to send out texts, emails, calls, and Facebook messages to our band, other band’s members, and the venue contacts to see if anyone had seen it. No luck.
I couldn’t get ahold of the venue, so I decided to wait until 7pm (venue load in time) to go look for it…with the hope that some kind soul had found it and turned it in to the venue management.
As the day wore on, that sinking feeling of pessimism started to creep in. The one that says, “It’s gone forever” - “I’m sure someone took it”.
Then it occurred to me - *ding* - Find My iPhone! The app that will show you the location of all your apple devices!
So, I pulled out my phone and signed into the app with my apple ID, hoping it would tell me the iPad was located at the venue.
It wasn’t.
The app showed all of my devices located together at my home address in Houston…and then zoomed out to show my iPad location. It was in College Station.
For those of you unfamiliar with the app, Find My iPhone will show you the exact location of your devices to within about 10 feet. Which means it can tell you the exact address at which the device resides. It also allows you to remotely put the device into “lost mode” which locks the device with a pin code, sends a sound alert, and displays a message saying “This is lost, please call 555-555-5555”
When I saw that the iPad was in College Station, a couple of emotions hit me. Anger, frustration, and the feeling of violation of my personal property being in the hands of a stranger, to name a few. I sat for a minute or two looking at the location of my iPad. What could I do? How can I recover my iPad?
So, I jumped in my car and started driving to College Station.
On the way I played through the possible scenarios in my mind. Do I knock on the door and confront this person myself? If they’re not home, should I bust out a window and go in to find my property and recover it? None of those scenarios sounded safe to me. I could land myself in trouble.
I decided to drive by the location, and then call the police department to let them handle the situation.
I pulled in to College Station and Find My iPhone led me into a residential area, and to a house. The house had multiple cars parked in the driveway, and the lights were on. Knocking on the door myself was definitely a bad idea.
I went to use the restroom at the gas station across the street. On the way out I ran in to 2 police officers on their way in. Pretty serendipitous. I explained the situation to them and they took down all of the information (on a side note, they were great. Very professional and courteous).
They decided the best course of action was to use their phone to sign in to my account. That way they could see the exact location, and also make the iPad call out with a sound alert so they could locate it on the property. They asked me to follow them to the house, park behind them, and stay in my car.
At this point it was dark outside. Around 8pm. I watched them walk up to the house with flashlights. They knocked on the door and brought about 5 men out of the house onto the front lawn. One of the officers went in the house. I started to get alerts on my phone that a sound alert had been sent to the iPad. There were about 5-6 alerts sent as the officer searched for the iPad in the house. Then the alerts stopped. 5 min later he came out and flashed his light at me and motioned for me to meet him by his car.
I walked up to him, and low and behold, he had found my iPad. He found it with one of the band members things. Incredible. He handed it to me.
Safe and sound.
I left Houston Sat night at 6:30pm, got to College Station at 8pm, and back home with my iPad by 10pm. I’d call that a successful mission.
Of course, the band members were mad that the cops were involved. They were probably embarrassed as well. To top it off, the officers found marijuana during the search, so needless to say, the band didn’t have a good night. I got some hateful and immature Facebook messages on my drive home, which actually made me smile a little wider.
Sometimes people actually get what’s coming to them.
Find My iPhone victory!
-Ty