Thief Temporarily Makes Off With iPhone During GPS Tracking Demo - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Thief Temporarily Makes Off With iPhone During GPS Tracking Demo

by

124852 covia alert respond

The San Francisco Chronicle relates the story of a thief who earlier this week briefly made off with an iPhone snatched right from a woman's hand in the city's South of Market neighborhood, not knowing that the phone was being used in a demonstration of real-time GPS tracking. The thief was apprehended about ten minutes later with the help of the location tracking.

Kahn said he had asked an assistant, Jordan Sturm, to take his phone out on the sidewalk so he could track her location on his laptop. Seconds after she left, though, a curious thing happened. She appeared -- according to Alert & Respond -- to be running at high speed down the street.

But Sturm no longer had the phone. After she hurried back into the office, she called police and the company relayed the phone's ever-changing location to officers.

Alert & Respond is a product from Covia Labs designed for first responders such as law enforcement agencies to enable real-time location tracking and to permit officers to share various communication methods across mobile device platforms and agencies.

Related Forum: iPhone

Popular Stories

iOS 27 Next to iPhone

Here's When iOS 27 Rolls Out Around the World

Sunday September 13, 2026 3:00 am PDT by
Apple is about to release iOS 27, which will finally deliver more advanced Siri AI capabilities as well as a variety of other refinements, improvements, and new features to iPhones. It's Apple's biggest software update of the year, and Apple announced at Wednesday's iPhone event that it will be releasing iOS 27 sometime tomorrow – Monday, September 14. iOS 27 won't be the only release on...
deep black iphone 18 pro

Apple Says iPhone 18 Pro Max Sold in U.S. Differs in One Way

Saturday September 12, 2026 3:27 pm PDT by
As noted by Nicolas Lellouche, who writes for the French tech website Numerama, Apple has updated its tech specs pages for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max to clarify which models are equipped with its new C2 cellular modem and where. Apple now says the iPhone 18 Pro has a C2 modem worldwide, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max uses the chip in every country except for the U.S. According...
iphone duo

IMAX Reacts to iPhone Duo's 1:1.4 Aspect Ratio Displays

Friday September 11, 2026 4:42 am PDT by
Production theater company IMAX has responded in a mixed way to Apple's embrace of a 1:1.4 aspect ratio on the iPhone Duo's inner and outer displays. The boxier ratio happens to be very close to the classic "full-frame" IMAX 1.43:1 aspect ratio, which comes from the geometry of the company's original 15-perforation/70mm film system. In response to an X post from someone wondering if we'll see...