When someone stole my iPhone while on vacation seven years ago, ‘Find My iPhone’ didn’t do me much good – they turned off my phone and that was it. A few years later, Apple implemented the possibility of locating an iPhone even when it was turned off, but there is little to be careful about. What if someone steals your phone when you’re using it? Then, this security automation for iOS can be very useful.
A few weeks ago, the journalist specializing in technology from the New York Times did an interesting report on one of the latest attacks on iPhone users: someone pays attention to how you unlock your phone using a PIN (or even forces you to do it instead of using biometric systems), keeps the code and steals your terminal. Then, with your phone and PIN in their possession, they need very little time to steal your digital life. Regardless of theft, the way to minimize risk is to say goodbye to four-digit PINs in favor of custom alphanumeric codes.
But, What if your phone is stolen from your hands when it is unlocked? Then this automation gives one more twist: if someone activates the airplane mode, the terminal requests an access code (obviously, it is better to configure it so that it is not the PIN, just in case).
If it is not correct (or they do not enter it), the phone automatically locks preventing access to other screens, activates connectivity and low consumption mode to then share your current location with the contacts you choose, a way to stretch the battery and make it easier for us to locate it.
Tweet with the automation of Diego Jiménez
An automation to make it more difficult for thieves
The initial automation does the actions you see in the tweet, but in the thread there is feedback with possible improvements that you can implement, such as taking a photo of the thief and sharing it via email, lowering the brightness of the screen to extend its autonomy or opting for an automation simpler, for example, When trying to put the airplane mode, the screen is locked. However, you can customize the automation according to your needs.
To carry out the automation, go to the application ‘shortcuts‘ on your iPhone and in the menu at the bottom, tap on ‘Automation‘. Once inside, tap on ‘Create personal automation‘. Now scroll down until you see ‘Airplane mode‘. Make sure the ‘Activate’ option is selected. Then hit ‘Following‘ and tap to add actions, which you can search for in the box.
Under these lines we leave you our implementation following the instructions of Applesfera:
When you have it all, toggle off the ‘request confirmation‘ and hit ‘okay‘.
We end with a general recommendation to improve security: block access to the Control Center if you don’t have your phone unlocked, so that nobody can activate airplane mode (unless they know your PIN or manage to steal your terminal when it’s on). unlocked), something you can do by following the path below: ‘Settings‘ > ‘Face ID and code‘ and there in ‘Allow access when locked‘, uncheck the Control Center option.
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