3 Times The ‘Find My iPhone’ App Turned Regular Phones Into SuperPhones

Nothing ruins your day quite like losing your phone. Luckily, iPhones are usually pretty good at telling you where exactly they’ve ended up once you’ve misplaced them. Sometimes, the incredibly useful <a href="https://www.apple.com/icloud/find-my-iphone.html" target="_blank">Find My iPhone</a> cloud app works so well it’s almost creepy.<br/><div id="mediavoice-native-ad-placeholder"></div><br/>Inspired by <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/31/businessman-finds-iphone-which-fell-out-of-plane-during-us-flight" target="_blank">one Texas man’s journey</a> to find the phone he dropped from a plane (From. A. Plane.), here are four times Find My iPhone worked less like a convenient app and more like a superhero gadget.<br/><ol class="listicle-container"><br/> <li><br/><div class="heading-container"><br/><h3 class="heading">That time a guy dropped his phone from 9,000 feet in the air and found it still working on the ground.</h3><br/></div><br/><div class="media-container"><br/><div id="6291ba9c" class="photo"><br/><div class="sharable-media-container"><img alt="WHEELING, IL - NOVEMBER 19: A private jet prepares to land November 19, 2003 at Palwaukee Municipal Airport in Wheeling, Illinois. The General Accounting Office (GOA) - the audit, evaluation, and investigative arm of Congress - has expressed concerns with the vulnerability of general aviation airports claiming there are fewer federal guidelines for security at these smaller types of airports. (Photo by Tim Boyle/Getty Images)" class="js-srcset-img shortcode-image js-srcset-done" data-sharable="{"type":"image","shareURL":"http:\/\/www.mtv.com\/news\/2229668\/find-my-iphone-app-adventures\/#6291ba9c","imageURL":"http:\/\/mtv.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:mtv.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/GettyImages-2744136-1438455898.jpg?width=1800&height=auto"}" src="http://mtv.mtvnimages.com/uri/mgid:file:http:shared:mtv.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/GettyImages-2744136-1438455898.jpg?quality=0.8&format=jpg&width=980" title="GOA Voices Concerns About General Aviation Airport Security" /><br/><div class="share-widget"></div><br/></div><br/><div class="photocredit">Getty Images</div><br/></div><br/></div><br/><div class="description-container">Ben Wilson was flying out of Houston when a pressure change in his plane opened the passenger door a crack. He didn’t notice his iPhone flying out of his pocket, but when he landed, it was nowhere to be found. So he did what any tech-savvy businessman would do: He fired up the Find My iPhone app with one of his employees and tracked the phone to Jacksboro, Texas. After some hunting, they located the phone underneath a tree in a pasture — and miraculously enough, it still worked perfectly.</div></li><br/> <li><br/><div class="heading-container"><br/><h3 class="heading">That time police found a woman trapped in a ravine by hacking her Find My iPhone account.</h3><br/></div><br/><div class="media-container"><br/><div id="f5436314" class="photo"><br/><div class="sharable-media-container"><img alt="" class="js-srcset-img shortcode-image js-srcset-done" data-sharable="{"type":"image","shareURL":"http:\/\/www.mtv.com\/news\/2229668\/find-my-iphone-app-adventures\/#f5436314","imageURL":"http:\/\/mtv.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:mtv.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/GettyImages-183004972-1438456186.jpg?width=1800&height=auto"}" src="http://mtv.mtvnimages.com/uri/mgid:file:http:shared:mtv.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/GettyImages-183004972-1438456186.jpg?quality=0.8&format=jpg&width=980" title="Border Security Unaffected By US Government Shutdown" /><br/><div class="share-widget"></div><br/></div><br/><div class="photocredit">Getty Images</div><br/></div><br/></div><br/><div class="description-container">Last October, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2792923/california-woman-tumbled-mountainside-hospital-17-hours-later.html" target="_blank">Melissa Vasquez tumbled into a ravine</a> in California, and no one knew where to find her. Police searched the area where she supposedly crashed her car, but couldn’t find any trace of the accident — that is, until they worked with her stepmother to hack into her iCloud account and get the GPS coordinates of her phone. Vasquez was retrieved from her car alive 17 hours after plunging 500 feet down the side of a mountain, all thanks to her iPhone.</div></li><br/> <li><br/><div class="heading-container"><br/><h3 class="heading">That time someone outed a thief by making his phone beep awkwardly from his pocket.</h3><br/></div><br/><div class="media-container"><br/><div id="e283da67" class="photo"><br/><div class="sharable-media-container"><img alt="screen-shot-2012-01-06-at-5-07-44-pm" class="js-srcset-img shortcode-image portrait js-srcset-done" data-sharable="{"type":"image","shareURL":"http:\/\/www.mtv.com\/news\/2229668\/find-my-iphone-app-adventures\/#e283da67","imageURL":"http:\/\/mtv.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:mtv.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/screen-shot-2012-01-06-at-5-07-44-pm-1438456283.png?width=620&height=620"}" src="http://mtv.mtvnimages.com/uri/mgid:file:http:shared:mtv.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/screen-shot-2012-01-06-at-5-07-44-pm-1438456283.png?quality=0.8&format=jpg&width=980" title="screen-shot-2012-01-06-at-5-07-44-pm" /><br/><div class="share-widget"></div><br/></div><br/><div class="photocredit">Nikolaus Kakavoulis/Facebook</div><br/></div><br/></div><br/><div class="description-container">Nikos Kakavoulis was in the middle of enjoying some coffee at a Starbucks in Athens, Greece when he accidentally left his iPhone on the bathroom sink. By the time he got back to the men’s room, it was nowhere to be found, and no one had turned it in to the baristas. So Kakavoulis did what any wannabe crime-buster would do — he pulled up Find My iPhone on a coworker’s phone and told the missing iPhone to make a <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/06/when-find-my-iphone-becomes-an-adventure/" target="_blank">really loud sound</a>. The beeping led him to the thief, who awkwardly handed over the phone and split.</div></li><br/></ol>

3 Times The ‘Find My iPhone’ App Turned Regular Phones Into SuperPhones

Nothing ruins your day quite like losing your phone. Luckily, iPhones are usually pretty good at telling you where exactly they’ve ended up ...

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