Losing an iPhone
My iPhone has become a very important part of my life. It’s not just a phone or an email client. It really is a fully capable portal to the Internet that can go anywhere. Furthermore, I don't just use it for the same kinds of things I do at home. It’s not a laptop replacement or proxy. It’s not a just a way to surf the web. It’s something else that I don’t have a good term for. Whatever the term for it, it’s woven itself into the daily rhythms of my life more deeply than I could have guessed. Until I lost it.
Losing it could barely have come at a more inopportune time. It slipped out of my jacket as I was getting out of a cab at Portland International Airport to board a flight to Albuquerque. I noticed it was missing right as I walked through the door to the ticketing lobby, made a u-turn, and looked for the cab. No such luck. I quickly whipped out my laptop, got onto the free WiFi at PDX, and instant messaged a couple of friends, “Hey, I just left my phone in a cab. Can you call it?” Nobody had any luck. Worst of all, I was out of time. I had to make my way through security or miss my flight at the start of Thanksgiving week. Maybe I should have stayed and tried to get my phone back which would have required standing by for later flights, but I didn’t. At the time, I figured the potential cost of playing havoc with my schedule wouldn’t be worth it and I didn’t think I’d be able to recover the phone in any case. So I went on with my trip as planned.
Of course, the first symptom of the loss manifested itself in coordinating schedules with others. This is the obvious symptom of loosing a phone on a trip. Luckily, I was able to muddle through without too much of a problem. I had been smart enough to print out PDFs of my rental car reservation and maps of where I was going so onto my laptop at the airport. And, the family members I was meeting up with upon arrival had seen my tweets about loosing my phone and made sure to meet me at the airport so that we could coordinate from there. So, that all worked out OK even with the sudden transition to a technology platform circa 2002.
The second symptom came a bit later when we wanted to find a good restaurant. Not just any restaurant. A great New Mexico style Mexican food restaurant. Green and red chiles. Sopapillas, in both stuffed and plain varieties. Chile con queso. Chile rellenos. Oh yes, we knew exactly what we wanted. And we wanted a great example of the cuisine. Using my laptop at the hotel, I found what looked to be a good place and we set out only to find it was closed. Doh! We had a Garmin Nuvi with us along with its location database, but the lack of having Google available on demand hindered our ability to sort out the wheat from the chaff. So we proceeded to do things the old fashioned way and drive about until we found a place. We ended up doing just fine, after about an hour of hunting about, but it was maddening not to have Yelp, Citysearch, and Google at my beck and call.
This sort of thing repeated itself throughout the week. There were so many times when I wanted just one small piece of information and had to do without. Sometimes, it was no big deal. Just a random twitch of wanting to know something. Other times, however, being able to access just one small bit of data could have made the entire trip a little bit better. Finding a great restaurant on the road between Albuquerque and White Sands. Checking the satellite weather maps. Looking up sunset times. Seeing when a particular store would be open until. Sending a photograph of where I was at a particular moment to a friend.
When first promised the Internet in your pocket, you think you’ll use the way you always used to. Checking email and what not. Then, you find it’s ever so much more useful than that. It really is a bit of the future that you can slip in your pocket. It isn’t just how it looks and feels. It’s what it does. Maybe it says that I live way too connected a life. Some people might see that as a problem. I, on the other hand, see of it as perfectly normal. And I want my normal back, dammit.
As it turns out, I will get it back. This story has a happy ending. Amazingly enough, the taxi cab driver ended up turning in my iPhone to his company’s lost and found department. Good on him. I wasn’t expecting that at all. I figured it was history, that somebody would have found it and tried to make it theirs. I was sure I would have to fork out the money to buy a new one. In fact, I was literally within about an hour or two deciding of to go to the Apple Store in Albuquerque to buy a new one when I found out that it had been found. Now, I either just have to wait until I get back to Portland or possibly I’ll ask a friend to go by and pick it up for me and FedEx it to me. Either way, I’ll have it back in my pocket.
I can tell ya, it won’t be soon enough. And the jacket that had the pocket that won’t safely hold the iPhone, well, I think I’m going to donate it soon to Goodwill.
24 Comments
Ugh! My condolences.
It's one of my biggest fears, losing the iPhone. I keep it wedged between my wallet and my thigh, in the front jeans pocket. But I constantly tap it to confirm it's still there.
I'm curious what it means when you lose an iPhone. Do you have to buy it again at the "no contract" unlocked price? They should offer some deal to people who honestly just lose it mid-contract and need to reup.
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Daniel, from what I understand about how the subsidy works, you’ll get dinged for the full price of the phone unless a customer service agent can pull all the right strings for you. I was fully expecting to have to shell out $400 or so to replace the phone. I was also fully prepared to beg for a bit to try to get the discounted price. I’m glad I didn’t have to find out. Maybe somebody with more concrete knowledge can chip in an answer?
I’ll certainly be keeping a better watch on the phone from now on. And, I may put back on the Incase protective sleeve that makes the phone a bit more grippy. That might help prevent a future accident like this.
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In the UK, you can buy an optional insurance when you purchase the phone. No insurance = = full price replacement.
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Maybe it's time to glue a nice sticker with your email and a reward on your iPhone. I'm not hte kind who leaves it in a jacket pocket, but I'd do that if I were to lose it as frequently as you seem to do.
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Im so glad you got your phone back and did not have to buy another one. Kudos to that driver.
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My iPhone reminds me a little bit of David Marusek's notion of a "belt valet" (see Getting to Know You).
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I lost my 1st Gen iPhone in a cab in LA. I realized it minutes later at the hotel I was staying in. I couldn't remember the cab company but knew their logo, so I asked another cab who had that particular logo, and got the name of the company.
I called the dispatcher from the hotel bell captain stand, mind you this had been no more than 10 minutes after the loss. The dispatcher got the cab on the radio, and asked him to look for the phone. 10 minutes later, he said he hadn't found the phone in the cab. This was impossible, as I remember leaving it on the seat of the cab when I went to get my wallet, and as the cabbie hadn't picked up another fare, he was deadheadding back to the airport.
Moral of the story? You shouldn't have waited around trying to locate your phone.
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I think high cost consumer electronics items should come with some kind of paired RFID tag security system. If you could, say, sew a tag onto your shoes or something, and activate the phone to alarm when it gets more than 5 feet away from you.
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Cyril, yah. Twice in two years. I will be definitely looking at getting some contact info added. As well, I'll be defeating the slipperiness of the phone somehow. The smooth back compliments the glass on the front, but aids and abets the phone getting away.
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Joel, yes. The driver was awesome. I was not expecting it to come back at all.
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If it's within the first three months of ownership, some credit cards offer protection for accidental loss or breakage. If you have home or apartment insurance, consider putting it on that.
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I would be so happy to offer a reward to the finder of my iPhone. I'm impressed that the cabbie turned it in. Wow.
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My iPhone was stolen and I bought a new one the next day. Can't live without one now, ya know. Anyway it's kind of a blessing cause I found out that State Farms has a personal articles policy for products that you paid over $400 for. It covers evrything that could possibly happen to the phone for only $25 with no deductible. Anyway now I live without the fear cause I know I'm covered. The only thing that sucks is that you need the $400 receipt so you can't insure unless you buy a second iPhone or weren't eligible for an upgrade.
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Glad to hear you got it back!
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For a free app that puts your name and contact info on the screen so it's visible even when the phone is locked, see If Found, Please...
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Victor, thanks for that. I'll check it out when I get my phone back.
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I can confirm - you will pay full price for the replacement phone if you lose one. I had an original iPhone from the day it came out until the beginning of May - almost a full year - when I lost it on a business trip to the U.K.
I immediately reported the phone stolen so that I would not be responsible for any calls... this was my mistake as you'll see.
Upon my return to the US I activated an older phone since the older model was no longer available and the new 3G model was widely rumored. I did keep my iPhone AT&T Plan. Imagine my surprise when, in July, I went to buy a new iPhone 3G and was told I was not eligible for the special pricing as I was not an existing iPhone customer and that I would have to pay full price. Because I reported the old phone stolen (and activated a non-iPhone on the account), and despite continuing to pay the higher monthly fee with an older phone, I wasn't an iPhone customer!
Despite raising this to an AT&T manager, they would not budge. I have my 3G, but this is just one more thorn in my side about AT&T.
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James,
Sorry to hear you lost your phone, glad to hear that it will find it's way back home.
Check this case for the "stickiness" that you may be looking for:
http://www.dlo.com/Products/hshell_iphone3g_Prod.tpl?command=showpage&cart=1228106180537621
YMMV
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There is a company (stuffbak.com) that specializes in return of lost goods. They provide a variety of stickers that you attach to your stuff. If lost the finder can contact the company to facilitate return of the lost goods.
Here is an article about this which mentions some competing companies.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/edwardbaig/2004-06-09-baig_x.htm
http://www.stuffbak.com
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i pay £5 (uk sterling) a month for my iphone insurance. I wouldn't have bought it but i dropped my last phone down the toilet.
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I certainly understand what a mess it would be to lose an iPhone! Mine is now always in my hands are nearby. It's more then a wallet or car keys.
As you said, it's not a replacement for my MacBook, but it lives between myself and nearly everything else in life.
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Yesterday I left my phone at home. My wife and I ride together and at work right now I'm in a class, not in my cube with my phone. It was extremely stressful for just one day. I had a hard time getting in touch with my wife to set up time to pick her up, I didn't have my personal calendar and address book (until I finally got MobileMe web access to work), etc, etc.
It's amazing and scary how ingrained it becomes in your life.
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For all the knocks it gets (and certainly some from me), MobileMe is a real life saver in a case like this. I didn't lose my phone, but recently I was traveling to NYC. When I got off the train, the phone started up, searched for signal and froze. When it re-started, it was wiped clean. All gone. Plug into iTunes to activate.
My backup was on my home machine, not the notebook I was traveling with. A few hours later, after the help of some friendly folks at the Apple store, I had a new, empty phone (the original was borked). The silver lining was that within 5 minutes, all my email, contacts and calendars were back on the phone, which was a huge help.
As for having to pay full price for a replacement. That's my nightmare. I really wish they had some type of insurance. Anyway, glad it worked out Duncan--that's an awesome cab driver.
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I was "lucky" enough to lose a 1st generation iPhone that I had paid a lot of good money for a few weeks after getting it. Same story, in a rush, in a taxi etc. I was not so lucky to have a nice taxi driver to hand it in.
The whole experience is very painful, especially when you've paid top dollar for the phone and literally have no way to replace except for shelling out the full price again.
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