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Someone just came to my house and asked if I had her iPad. It was missing (stolen?). The app on her phone said it was at my house. She even showed me. I don’t know what app it was. The only people who live here are me and my 86-year-old mom. Why would it show my address?

I asked where it was the last time she saw it and she said on her bed. I never met the woman before. We looked around outside and could not find it. She commented that the battery was probably dead. I googled and saw that if the battery was dead, it couldn’t be tracked. Any idea on why it would show my address?

Andrew T.
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Linda
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    This is all speculation so I'm not putting it as an answer, but it could be a scam with a fake app/screenshot to try and get access to the property to see if it's worth robbing, or to test the gullibility of the occupants, or maybe to threaten going to the police and reporting you for stealing in an attempt to extort you. – Sam Dean Oct 27 '23 at 13:25
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    Do you live near a main road? Could be the device was somewhere nearby when it sent its last ping but kept moving. – Criggie Oct 27 '23 at 22:31

1 Answers1

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Apple has a service called "Find My" that can locate your devices. It shows the device on a map and tries to determine the address of the same location. You can read more about Find My at Locate a device in Find My on iPhone.

It's important to check the actual area in the map that it says it is, not just the address - since perhaps the map shows a large region and your address is just in the middle of that region.

It is possible to locate these devices after the battery has died for a period of time, as they continue broadcasting a low-power signal for this purpose.

In summary, without confirming they were actually in "Find My" by Apple, and without seeing the map itself (not just the address), it's not possible to be sure they were at the right place.

agarza
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Ezekiel
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  • Citation needed for your penultimate paragraph, as I’ve never heard that before (about the battery dying). What they do is, when the battery is critically low, automatically send their last known location to Apple’s servers even if the location has not been requested at that point. Although this setting can be turned off. – Darren Oct 28 '23 at 06:26
  • @Darren You might be right, but I can't find documentation in the contrary. I know that it continues broadcasting for Find My when the device has been shut down, and I know that NFC on iPhone continues working for a period of time after the battery has died. I assume that Find My broadcasting also works when the battery dies for a short period of time, but might be wrong. – Ezekiel Oct 29 '23 at 13:15