Adult star Jesse Jane took to Twitter to let everyone know her purse — including her iPhone — was stolen, and that she was going to use iCloud — and presumably Find my iPhone — to hunt it down!

After tracking the phone to Hollywood, she took some guys with her and went to get her stuff back from the people who stole it.

Don’t mess with the power of technology!

• Free – Find my iPhone

Source: @JesseJane

A few interesting patent applications from Apple have recently surfaced, showing they have some bold ideas surrounding Find My iPhone, social-matching, and a way to lock the camera so we can’t make bootleg concert recordings and plaster them on YouTube (?!).

Reminder: Apple, like any big company, routinely patents just about anything and everything they dream up, and there’s no way to know when, or if, they’ll use any them in actual, shipping products. Still, it’s interesting to see what they’re working on deep inside the secret Cupertino labs…

Follow on after the break for the roundup!

Find My iPhone

First off, Apple has applied for a patent describing a much more control-oriented Find My iPhone feature with additional security and deeper system integration. Find My iPhone currently lets users remotely lock their iPhone, wipe their data, locate the iPhone on a map or send a personalized message to the device.

This is all nice, but Apple may decide to up the ante and provide much deeper control for the corporate and enterprise environment and better assistance for recovering a lost iPhone.

• Selective data scrambling and wiping lets users define whether to scramble certain data or to wipe specific data instead of clearing the entire device. Users can avoid wiping all data by scrambling emails, contacts etc making the data unusable, or selectively wiping only sensitive data while keeping other data intact.
• Unauthorized user detection is a method of detecting when someone other than yourself has tried to access your iPhone after a certain number of incorrect passcodes have been entered. Once the threshold has been met, the iPhone puts itself into a higher security mode with surveillance options for transmitting audio and video from the front-facing camera, thus giving the owner a higher probability of recovering the lost iPhone.
• Limited functionality allows for locking down an iPhone by turning off certain features, letting an unauthorized user perform tasks with limited capability and functions. The owner can the device to disable cellular data, phone, SMS and other capabilities as to not incur charges on their monthly phone bill. It also offers a function to disable VPN capabilities for better protection of corporate data if the device is lost or stolen.

Making friends just got easier

A second new patent application reveals that Apple has some ambitious ideas to make the process of finding friends with similar interests a lot easier. Tapping into location data, interests, books and other data stored on the iPhone will help match you up with other iPhone users with similar interests.

Social networks are a well known phenomenon, and various electronic systems to support social networking are known. Growing a social network can mean that a person needs to discover like-minded or compatible people who have similar interests or experiences to him or her. Identifying like-minded people, however, often requires a substantial amount of and time and effort because identifying new persons with common interests for friendships is difficult. For example, when two strangers meet, it may take a long and awkward conversation to discover their common interests or experiences.

Common interests and experiences of two or more users located close to each other can be identified from content, including automatically created usage data of the mobile devices. Usage data of a mobile device can be created based on activities performed on the mobile device (e.g., songs downloaded), a trajectory of the mobile device (e.g., places traveled), or other public data available from the mobile device (e.g., pictures shared).

All of this would be opt-in to help avoid privacy concerns, but the location-based services are quite interesting to say the least. As an example, if you tend to visit a specific coffee shop in your town, your iPhone could match you up with another iPhone user who also frequents that location. The idea is to make it easier to discover like-minded people and help spark up friendships that wouldn’t otherwise be as easy to start.

Recording at concerts is a no-no

Lastly, Apple plans to build a system that will determine when users are trying to record or stream live video at concerts and events, and subsequently turn off camera functionality on the device. It works by using infrared sensors that can tell when people in the crowd are recording and sends a signal to the device to disable the camera. Users would still be able to send and receive text messages, calls, data etc.

That… seem a little “Big Brother” to anyone else?

[Patently Apple, MacRumors, The Sun, thanks Steven!]

There’s some debate as to whether or not Apple will keep the MobileMe web apps, like Mail, Contacts, and Calendars around after the transition to iCloud. Some have heard no, that Apple will trash them and go 100% apps. Others have heard yes, that Apple will keep them around.

No one outside Apple seems to know for sure. For our part, TiPb has heard there will indeed be web apps in iCloud. At the very least, you’ll need a way to access Find my iPhone, Find my iPad, and the forthcoming Find my Mac over the web. Apple has also poured significant resources into the SproutCore-powered Mail, Contacts, and Calendars app — including a major update to Calendars recently — and it’s hard to imagine them flushing all that effort.

Whether Photo Stream will take over for Photo Galleries, whether Documents in the Cloud will replace the wishy-washy iWork.com, and whether or not the App Store and iTunes store get Web-to-Device push remains unknown.

Even if the native iOS and Mac apps are used far more often, having the web apps as backup is a pretty important feature. We expect Apple to clarify before iOS 5 launches and iCloud comes out of beta this fall.

Every day, TiPb gets flooded with announcements for new and updated iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps and games. So every day we pick just a few of the most interesting, the most notable, and simply the most awesome to share with you!

• Find my iPhone: Now you will be notified when an offline device you are trying to find comes online. [Free - iTunes link]

• iCan ABC: An app to help kids learn the letters of the alphabet. [$0.99 for iPhone - iTunes link] [$2.99 for iPad - iTunes link]

• AT&T Navigator: Now a universal application for iPhone and iPad! [Free, with AT&T Navigator subscription -iTunes link]

• SCRABBLE: Now featuring Origin – an easy new way to find and connect with friends playing SCRABBLE. [$2.99 - iTunes link]

• Tweetings for Twitter: Now you can add color groups to users to accent the timeline. [$2.99 - iTunes link]

Any other big apps or game releases or updates today? If you pick any of these up, let us know what you think!

Is Apple’s MobileMe service worth $99 a year? Or more to the point, who is Apple’s MobileMe service worth it for? Now that one of its most compelling features, Find my iPhone is free (yes, even for older devices!) it’s a question we’re getting asked more and more often. Steve Jobs says MobileMe will get much better in 2011, but what about now, today? That’s the topic for the eighth episode of our new, conversational video show, TiPb TV!

Rene and I go over the services MobileMe provides for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users, and the additional features people with Macs — or multiple Macs — get out of it, cheaper places to find it (like Amazon.com) as well as free alternatives like Gmail and Dropbox for those who’d rather roll their own.

If you’re trying to figure out whether or not to spend the money on MobileMe watch along and we’ll help you decide!

It looks like MobileMe might be in for some improvements next year, given Steve Jobs’ purported response to one frustrated customer.

I love my iPad and iPhone 4 and am a huge fan of yours and all that Apple does. I desperately want to stay inside of Apple’e ecosystem as much as possible. However, MobileMe is making it very difficult for me to do so. Unreliable/unpredictable syncing, creating duplicate entries (sometimes scores of them), etc. It’s almost unusable. And I know from forums (including Apple’s own support boards) that I am not the only one experiencing these very real and frustrating problems. Please tell me it will get better, and soon?

The Steve Jobs response:

Yes, it will get a lot better in 2011.

Sent from my iPhone

I’m sure we’ve all had our ups and downs with MobileMe at one point, given the service has had some reliability issues since its re-launch (previously named .Mac) in 2008. With one of its most valuable features (Find My iPhone) recently going free, some wonder if the service is still worth the $99/year cost.

What sort of improvements do you see Apple bringing to the table with MobileMe? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

[MacRumours]

Turns out there might be a hard — and permanent — per device limit to setting up those free Find my iPhone accounts Apple announced alongside iOS 4.2.1, the ones you needed an iPhone 4, iPod touch (2010), or iPad to initiate but could then use on iPhone 3GS and other, older hardware.

TiPb Forum member milani started setting up a few accounts and after the 3rd he was greeted with a popup that said:

Cannot Sign In

The maximum number of free accounts have been activated on this iPhone.

There’s a learn more button but apparently whatever landing page is supposed to be there to explain further isn’t there yet.

A second popup read:

Account Limit Reached

This device is no longer eligible for creating a free MobileMe account.

Now granted, most users won’t need more than one account. They’ll create it, set it up on their iOS devices and be done. However some family members may only have one 2010 device to create the accounts on but want one or more accounts for different devices, for privacy’s sake. If there is indeed a hard limit of 3 accounts per device it would be neighborly of Apple to “fine print” it somewhere. We looked but couldn’t find anything, even in the Knowledge Base FAQ. There doesn’t seem to be a way to remove accounts either, so once you’ve created 3 on a device, that’s it, that’s all. Forever.

So if you were planning on setting up multiple accounts, be forewarned. And if you’ve had this problem let us know what, if anything, you’ve been able to do about it.

When Apple announced Find my iPhone was going free this morning they seemed to restrict it to 2010 hardware: iPhone 4, iPod touch 4, and iPad, but now it looks like there may be a way to get it working on iPhone 3GS and other unsupported devices. In fact, Apple.com tells you how:

Create a free Find My iPhone account on any iPhone 4, iPad, or iPod touch (4th generation) running iOS 4.2. Once you create an account on a qualifying device, use your Apple ID and password to enable Find My iPhone on your other devices running iOS 4.2. Find My iPhone is not available in all countries.

UPDATE: Looks like there may be a limit of 3 free accounts per 2010 iOS device.

[Find my iPhone page via @jsnell]

With Apple making Find my iPhone free with iOS 4.2 for iPhone 4, iPad, and iPod touch 4, will you still pay for the full MobileMe service?

If you just want Find my iPhone, it’s an easy answer. Here’s your freebie, thanks and bye!

If you want MobileMe email, calendars, contacts, galleries, iDisk, and the whole suite of Mac services like Back to my Mac, dock, preference, keychain, and other sync features, then maybe it’s well worth the price?

If you like MobileMe but aren’t sure of the value, maybe you’re waiting for Apple to add even more and better features, or to lower the price before you renew?

Give us a quick vote in the poll above and give us your reasons in the comments below!

As part of their iOS 4.2 announcement and as previously rumored, Apple has also announced that they’re making the Find my iPhone feature of MobileMe free for all users:

The Find My iPhone (or iPad or iPod touch) feature is now free to use without a MobileMe℠ subscription and helps you locate your missing device.* The Find My iPhone app is a free download on the App Store℠ and lets users easily locate a missing device on a map and have it display a message or play a sound. Users can even remotely lock or wipe data from a lost device to protect privacy.

*The free Find My iPhone feature is available for iPhone 4, iPad or new iPod touch (4th generation).

You can still use Find my iPhone on older iPhones and iPod touches but the account has to be set up on a 2010 model first. Either express your delight at having the new free service — or your outrage at having paid for it already — in the comments!

[Apple PR]

MacRumors scores yet more evidence Apple might just be considering adding a free level of MobileMe service for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad owners on iOS 4.2.

The evidence comes in the form of a new private framework known as AppleAccounts.framework that includes a series of device-specific error messages referring to free MobileMe accounts. In particular, the error messages include alerts regarding having reached “the maximum number of free accounts” for a given device and certain devices not being “qualified for free MobileMe service”.

It looks like email won’t be going free but Find my iPhone, Gallery, and sync services just might be. Interestingly, that matches what we saw on Me.com a couple weeks ago — Find my iPhone and Gallery being listed as no-subscription required apps.

Anyone starting to believe?

If you go to me.com on your iPad or iPhone you’ll a screen with options to Install Find my iPhone and Gallery, and then a second category labeled as “Requires Paid Subscription”, which includes Set up Mail, Contacts, Calendar and Install iDisk.

That’s a little confusing since if you tap the iTunes link, you’re taken to the App Store which promptly informs you Find my iPhone indeed still requires a paid subscription to MobileMe (or the 60-day free trial). Likewise, MobileMe Gallery still requires a member name and password on launch.

So why put Find my iPhone and Gallery above the pay warning? Why put iDisk below it? Poor design, cheap attempt to get people to download and the push the subscription service, or unintentional glimpse of potentially free aspects of MobileMe to come?

Check out the screen and let me know what you think.

[Thanks Paul for the tip!]

Apple has released an official Find my iPhone app, and it’s a universal binary for both iPhone and iPad. (Yes, it’s still called Find my iPhone on the iPad and iPod touch, what’s in a name?)

It works pretty much as you’d expect — enter your MobileMe login (it asks for the password each time, which might annoy you until you realize someone could use it to track you or your family members), see a list of your devices, tap one to locate it, send it an alert, lock it, or remotely wipe it.

I couldn’t get locate or alert working in my quick tests, but it could still be rolling out. I’ll try again later. If you installed it, let me know how it’s working for you.

iPad screenshot after the break.

[iTunes link]

Apple has changed MobileMe’s me.com site, previously inaccessible from iPhone or iPod touch Safari, to not only allow access to Find My iPhone, but to offer help in setting up accounts and getting additional apps. iTunes Preview, meanwhile, has duplicated even more of the media and app browsing experience on the web by adding support for categories.

First up, when you used to go to http://www.me.com on your iPhone, you used to see an intercept page telling you to set up the services on your iPhone and that was it. Now the new page (above) has a link to setting up those services, a direct link to Find my iPhone, and links for getting Apple’s free Gallery and iDisk App Store apps.

Obviously, Find My iPhone from an iPhone or iPod touch (or iPad, as we presume that’s what Apple is setting all this up for) is the Big News here. The link itself is a bit clunky still and the Find My iPhone page hasn’t been optimized for the iPhone, but having it available online and mobile is huge.

Next, TUAW shows how Apple has once again expanded iTunes Preview — the web browser-based front for the iTunes store — adding full on category pages to the previous app and music rollout. Another piece in the rumored iTunes.com cloud-based puzzle?

Let us know what you think of these changes!

[Thanks Jason for the tip!]

Apple’s MobileMe News page has posted two updates today, one on recent MobileMe service improvements, including direct access to Find my iPhone, and the other on iDisk public folder updates.

First up, the service improvements:

As part of an update to the MobileMe web applications, you can now access Find My iPhone directly from the MobileMe toolbar. This support article contains information about this and other service improvements.

Second, iDisk:

Your iDisk Public folder, a place where you can share files with friends, now matches the look of me.com and supports drag and drop for moving files between folders. You can manage your Public folder preferences at me.com including allowing visitors to upload, move, and delete files, and setting a password to protect your Public folder. To edit preferences simply click the Action button (gear icon) in the iDisk web application and select Preferences. You can then upload or move files to your Public folder at me.com, and your friends can access them by visiting http://public.me.com/[YourMemberName].

Apple’s MobileMe News “blog” is touting a new feature: you can now remotely set a passcode lock with Find My iPhone and iPhone 3.1:

With Find My iPhone, you can help protect the information on a missing iPhone by remotely assigning a four-digit passcode lock. This is especially useful if you’ve never set a passcode before or if you want to set a new one.

This is a nice half-way ground between leaving it wide open, or having to wipe it clean, if you can’t find it but aren’t sure you’ve permanently lost it.

And, again, it shows MobileMe is all about the incremental update. Very incremental…

In the justice system of internet zaniness, iPhones are represented by two separate yet equally important groups. Apple, who creates cool technology, and the badapps people who put it to use. These are their stories…

First up, reader Matt pointed us towards an article on CNN.com where a passenger traveling within the US, carrying over $4000 in cash, was held for questioning and all he had to defend himself was:

a pocket edition of the U.S. Constitution and an iPhone capable of making audio recordings. And he used them.

Next up, Icebike let us know about Intermittent Kevin (via Slashdot) who was attending a Lego convention in Chicago who’s iPhone was left behind at a bar, and stolen. His only hope:

I had just activated the brand-new Find My iPhone service.

(Note: while he recovered his iPhone, he might just as easily have run into Hannibal Lecter. “Hero complex” is personal protection faux-pas 101. These stories are presented for interest-sake only. No one at TiPb or SPE advises anyone to put their life in jeopardy for a gadget.)

UPDATE: Enable your iPhone via Settings > Email > Mobile > Find my iPhone. Then go to me.com, login to your Account tab, and choose Find My iPhone from the sidebar. Voila! Thanks to everyone who sent this in. Screen grab after the break!

ORIGINAL: Apple just announced via their MobileMe News “blog” that:

Find My iPhone can be found at me.com today, but you also need iPhone OS 3.0 (available on June 17) installed on your iPhone to use the feature.

You can learn more about Find My iPhone by visiting What’s New for MobileMe.

We don’t see it yet, but if you’re a developer already rocking 3.0 and MobileMe, hit http://www.me.com and let us know if/how it works for you!

As part of the WWDC keynote today, Apple announced new features for their MobileMe service as it pertains to the iPhone:

• Find my iPhone shows map location
• Find alerts sends text or sound to advise of lost iPhone or help find it

• Remote wipe lets you clear data from a lost iPhone, or restore it via login or iTunes

• Mobile iDisk App gives access to viewable files right on your iPhone

• File sharing lets you send links to files via email with access control
• Access public folders lets you share files on your friends’ iDisks

Like iPhone 3.0, the MobileMe updates will be available June 17.

[Thanks Cody for the tip!]

A minor tweak in iPhone 3.0 Beta 4 changes the language for the — still-unannounced by Apple — “Find My iPhone” feature from simply saying it uses your MobileMe account at me.com, to saying it uses a MobileMe Web application.

The assumption has always been that this feature would let you track a lost iPhone (or perhaps the child for whom you bought it), web application sounds — at least to us — a tad more substantial in terms of implementation.

Since Apple will have to build out MobileMe to support this, and since we’re speculating anyway, we’re also still hoping a revamped MobileMe in general might make a guest appearance at WWDC (where Phil Schiller introduced it last year). With note sync finally available, adding it to MobileMe seems an obvious move. Tasks/Todo sync, as well as Photo Sync (currently photos can be shared and stored, but sync only to iPhoto web albums, not to the iPhone) and perhaps — some of the other improvements we’ve dreamt of?

/Tangent

(Thanks to Cody for the tip!)

BGR, who claims to have chanced upon the iPhone OS 3.0 developers beta via shinobi-affiliated sources, also came across an interesting looking new setting in the MobileMe account page:

Find my iPhone

They wonder allowed if this is a new GPS locate feature for iPhone (like an iPhone low-jack). That would be a very cool update to MobileMe indeed, though limiting it to MobileMe wouldn’t be anywhere near as cool.