For iPhone or any other Apple devices, you might know about Find My iPhone. When looking up for it in Google, then you will find several people asked about how accurate is Find My iPhone. Here we are going to give you a detailed answer to the question.
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What is Find My iPhone?
So, before asking on how accurate is Find My iPhone, you should know what is that. Find My iPhone is a service from Apple to locate your Apple devices. Thus, when you lost your iOS device, Mac, AirPods, or even Apple Watch, you can locate them.
To do so, there are several conditions to meet. First, you have to set up the Find My iPhone option in the device you are going to locate. For locating the Apple Watch, then it should be paired with an iPhone. Another condition, the device should be online when you are looking for it.
Meanwhile, for the AirPods, the location should be close to any of your iOS devices and paired to one. Although, you can search it by using any other iOS devices you have – as long as paired to one.
How is Find My iPhone Works?
Maybe it still confusing how accurate is Find My iPhone just by the explanation about the what is that. For that reason, here we are going to explain how it works and how to use it:
- First, you have to open Find My iPhone and sign in with your Apple ID (like for your iCould)
- The screen will display a map with two different colors of dots – blue and green/grey. The blue color means the device that you are using for the searching. Meanwhile the green/grey is the device that you are searching for. Green is the device online and grey is the device offline.
- Then, tap the green/grey dot to see where it is located. If it online (green), then you can see the approximate location right away. But if it’s offline (grey) they the location will only available for 24 hours. When it happens, you can tap on Notify When Found to get an email notification about the location when it turned online.
- You can keep the location update by keeping refreshing the page. To move the map, you can simply swipe it up, down, left, or right. Meanwhile, to zoom the map, you can double-tap with one finger (zoom in), double-tap with two fingers (zoom out), or just pinch it close/open.
- To get the direction, just tap on Actions and choose the car icon.
Aside from using your own devices, you can also use your family’s or friend’s if you set the device on Family Sharing. But make sure to sign out from Find My Location once you locate your device.
Factors that Affected on How Accurate is Find My iPhone
Find My iPhone works by using a combination of GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular data. The three of them used to point where the location of your device. Here’s the explanation about each of the combined factors that affected how accurate is Find My iPhone:
1. GPS
If your device location is in a clear shot of satellite GPS signal, then you can find it in more or less 8-meters range. But the problem is satellite not always accurate to read in a crowded area or rural ones. Also, it will be difficult if your device located in a building or you are facing some sort of interface.
But still, when you can locate your device by using the GPS, it would give the best result. This is that GPS can pinpoint the range of the location area. Thus, you will have an exact area where you should start your searching party.
2. Wi-Fi
The second best option is when Find My iPhone can’t work with the GPS, it would search into the Wi-Fi. This would happen when GPS faced difficulties such as your device in a building or in the crowd area. Then, Wi-Fi would be a better searching tool to use.
Find My iPhone will use crowd-sourced Wi-Fi to locate your device. But there is one problem, if your device in sleep mode, even the Wi-Fi source will not be able to locate it. Thus, one required condition here is you should turn on the Wi-Fi.
3. Cellular Data
The last factor that helps in locating your device is cellular data. Here, Find My iPhone uses the cell tower data to help in locating the device. The program will look into the cellular number you are using for the device and comb by the signal.
Compared to the other two previous factors, using cellular data signals would result in a wider search range. But still, it would work if both GPS and Wi-Fi failed to do so. But again, it can’t locate your device if it went offline.
Using Find My iPhone indeed accurate with some underlines – that the device is online and you put the GPS location on. Thus, it can answer your question on how accurate is Find My iPhone. Although we don’t hope you experience using Find My iPhone, we hope this explanation would help.
