Report Says iOS 7 Activation Lock Has Significantly Reduced iPhone Theft

Apple included a new anti-theft feature ‘Activation Lock to the Find My iPhone service’ in iOS 7. It ties your Apple ID so a stolen or lost device can’t be restored or used without credentials.

The NYT says that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the coming of the Activation Lock has decreased the number of iPhone related theft.

“The introduction of kill switches has clearly had an effect on the conduct of smartphone thieves,” Mr. Schneiderman said in an interview. “If these can be canceled like the equivalent of canceling a credit card, these are going to be the equivalent of stealing a paperweight.”

The report highlights iPhone robberies dropping by 24 percent in London and 38 percent in New York. The NY police also said that there was a 29 percent drop in Apple product-related robberies in the first 5 months of this year, compared to the first 5 months of 2013.

Lawmakers have been long pushing for better anti-theft features in smartphones. HTC, Google, Apple, Nokia, Microsoft, Huawei, and Samsung made a commitment to include such technology in their devices at the start of 2015.

It’s good to see such features helping decrease crime. You can also enable the Activation lock on your iPhone. However, we still root for Apple coming up with a solution to stop something turning off the device without a Touch ID or password, so an unauthorized person can’t stop the device from being tracked. It was a surprise to see something like this missing from iOS 8.

What do you think ?