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Find My Mac Goes Live For Developers

Wednesday August 3, 2011 4:44 pm PDT by Jordan Golson

Find My Mac has gone live for developers beta testing Apple's iCloud service. Find My Mac was officially added to Lion in Developer Preview 4, released after WWDC in June, though evidence of the feature had leaked in prior releases.

Find My Mac is very similar to Find My iPhone, only because the Mac has no GPS functionality, it seems likely the feature relies solely on nearby Wi-Fi networks to determine the computer's location.


Once it finds the lost Mac, users can send a message, remotely lock the screen, or even wipe out the entire drive. Find My Mac may launch this fall with the general release of iCloud.

[ 77 comments ]


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Erwin-Br
102 months ago
Ah, great! Sometimes I forget where I left my Mac Pro workstation*. This will be a great help for me! :D

*Usually when drunk.
Rating: 26 Votes
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Certinfy
102 months ago
At this rate in a few years we're also going to have "find my house" :D
Rating: 14 Votes
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MarkMS
102 months ago

Find my Mac? Cool. LOL. Guess everyone should do a secure 3 write when selling their macs now.


Everyone should always do a 1-pass (Zero data) erase. I do a 7-pass anytime I sell a computer and a 1-pass when I buy it a pre-owned machine.

But seriously, this will be even better if 3G/4G/LTE is added to future MacBook Airs or Pros. I rarely take my MBP out of the house, but I can see this being helpful for students and those who are always on the move.
Rating: 7 Votes
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hobo.hopkins
102 months ago
This sounds like a great feature, especially for college students who may have MacBooks that could be stolen quite easily. At least locating the computer could result in getting it back.
Rating: 7 Votes
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jyoung96
102 months ago

I wonder how easy it is to defeat a remotely locked Mac, such as putting it in target disk mode. Until I know more about how it works I wouldn't consider that a way to protect my data on a lost Mac. I'd wipe out the entire drive instead.




when you boot up, it goes straight to the passcode screen, i tried booting off disks, target disk mode, it won't accept it.
Rating: 6 Votes
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winston1236
102 months ago

Useless. Who is gonna return a mac after it is lost or stolen?


i dont want them to return it, i want to locate it and ill find them
Rating: 5 Votes
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OrangeSVTguy
102 months ago

Ah, great! Sometimes I forget where I left my Mac Pro workstation*. This will be a great help for me! :D

*Usually when drunk.


Yeah I hear people misplace those all the time. Slippery suckers.
Rating: 5 Votes
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jackrv
102 months ago
It's not perfect. I wonder how it is tied to the service? Serial Number would be funny. Sell your Mac and constantly annoy the buyer by locking it.

Joking aside, if it's software based, it is still better than nothing. A tech-savvy thief may know to disable Airport immediately, but at least it is still one small extra chance of recovery.
Rating: 5 Votes
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koobcamuk
102 months ago

It's not perfect. I wonder how it is tied to the service? Serial Number would be funny. Sell your Mac and constantly annoy the buyer by locking it.

Joking aside, if it's software based, it is still better than nothing. A tech-savvy thief may know to disable Airport immediately, but at least it is still one small extra chance of recovery.


I think it's more to do with data protection than recovering a stolen laptop.
Rating: 4 Votes
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plexdk
102 months ago
I would pay for "Find my keys".. that will change everything... :D
Rating: 4 Votes

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