using "location services" on iPhone for teens

[mafibisha]

Or actually for anyone.

Do you have yours activated /on?

How about for teens? I've read scary stuff about ways people can find you that way. But I've also heard it's good if someone gets lost etc.

What do ya'll think?

 

[cvjw]

We use the "find my friend" settings on our IPhones for our two teen boys. One is a freshman in college and one is a freshman in high school. They grumbled at the injustice of their parents knowing where they are, but relented in the end. Their other option was paying for their own phones

 

[3boymthr]

I use it. In part to find the phones when the kids have lost them, in part to track them when they go out the door. They are getting new phones soon and it will be turned on again.

 

[Lynne G]

I have it on. Like to know where they are and neither of my teens mind. While it does scare me, it was very helpful when my one teen lost his phone and helped us find it.

 

[princesspwrhr]

We have location services turned OFF on the majority of apps on my iPhone, my 16year olds iPhone, both my husbands' work and personal iPhones and my 10 & 11 year olds iPods. If there is no logical reason for the app to know where we are, location services are off (photos doesn't need location services, GPS does)

We do have "Find my iPhone" turned ON. The kids iPhones/iPods are on the family iTunes account, my husband has a different account for his personal one and another for work (company phone). Ironically, I have never yet felt the need to look up where my 16year old was, but she has pinged me! We use it more for lost ipods in the house than anything. I hope I never have to use it to find her.

 

[wenrob]

We have Find My Phone activated and also "share my location" within our family group. Only those of us in the group can see the location. My DD and DH go to school and work way across town. The time it takes to get home varies widely. I use it mostly to time dinner, lol. It's never bothered her and she can see where I'm at too.

 

[JanaDee]

Ours are all off, including the kids.

 

[mafibisha]

We have Find My Phone activated and also "share my location" within our family group. Only those of us in the group can see the location. My DD and DH go to school and work way across town. The time it takes to get home varies widely. I use it mostly to time dinner, lol. It's never bothered her and she can see where I'm at too.

Thanks for the replies all.
Okay this is going to sound lame, but where do I find the "find my phone" and "share my location"? DH and I have had iphones but never thought about this. Oldest kids did too. Its only now that it's come to my attention. Hence, the lameness LOL :/

 

[wenrob]

Thanks for the replies all.
Okay this is going to sound lame, but where do I find the "find my phone" and "share my location"? DH and I have had iphones but never thought about this. Oldest kids did too. Its only now that it's come to my attention. Hence, the lameness LOL :/

You can find both under iCloud in settings. For Find My Phone just scroll down and turn it on. It will ask you to turn on location services and your iCloud ID. Share My Location comes up when you set up Family Sharing in iCloud. Here you can check to share with family. You can also find the setting under location services. There you can share with anyone or just choose to share with certain people. That will show under the contact of the people you want to share with. You need to be on iOS 8 for that to work. Hope this helps.

edit to add: Here you go, this explains it. http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201087

We just use Find My Phone and the Family Share/Share my Location through contacts. I can tap "details" in the upper right in my texts for DD and DH and it will give me a little map. You can tap the map and it will take you to a larger view. It was lots of fun when we were in Disneyland.

another edited to add: You should at minimum have Find My Phone turned on so that if your phone is lost or stolen you can lock it remotely, send a message to contact you or even wipe it clean. I know of at least three people who have managed to track down their device because they had it turned on. With iOS 8 there is now a function that will tell you it's last known location if the battery dies or its turned off.

 

[mafibisha]

You can find both under iCloud in settings. For Find My Phone just scroll down and turn it on. It will ask you to turn on location services and your iCloud ID. Share My Location comes up when you set up Family Sharing in iCloud. Here you can check to share with family. You can also find the setting under location services. There you can share with anyone or just choose to share with certain people. That will show under the contact of the people you want to share with. You need to be on iOS 8 for that to work. Hope this helps.

edit to add: Here you go, this explains it. http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201087

We just use Find My Phone and the Family Share/Share my Location through contacts. I can tap "details" in the upper right in my texts for DD and DH and it will give me a little map. You can tap the map and it will take you to a larger view. It was lots of fun when we were in Disneyland.

another edited to add: You should at minimum have Find My Phone turned on so that if your phone is lost or stolen you can lock it remotely, send a message to contact you or even wipe it clean. I know of at least three people who have managed to track down their device because they had it turned on. With iOS 8 there is now a function that will tell you it's last known location if the battery dies or its turned off.

Thank you so much for all the info.

One difference - we are still using IOS 7 and not 8. :/

So I don't see "Find My Phone" anywhere. Just a general "location services" to turn off or on.

So do we need to update to 8 to use those features? Heard so much bad press about 8 just haven't done it.

Thx

 

[wenrob]

Thank you so much for all the info.

One difference - we are still using IOS 7 and not 8. :/

So I don't see "Find My Phone" anywhere. Just a general "location services" to turn off or on.

So do we need to update to 8 to use those features? Heard so much bad press about 8 just haven't done it.

Thx

You can download the Find My Phone app from the App Store and then set it up. The Family Sharing and Share my Location you need 8. What version of the iPhone do you have? We had it on our fives and now we have sixes. It's by far my favorite iOS, it adds a ton of functionality. Bugs are pretty minor. What have you heard about it?

 

[Mickeyluver37]

How about this for a scary story...My dd had this turned on, phone got smashed. She found one of those places online that buys broken phones, they sent an envelope, and she sent the phone on its merry way. A few months later, she starts getting random texts, emails, phone calls from an odd number, which she ignored. But, this guy was REALLY trying to get in touch with her and started sending her pictures of herself- did I mention he was in Russia?! Turns out she left the find my iphone on when she sold the phone. Because of what that function is intended for, only she could turn it off, and he needed her to turn it off so he could use it himself.

 

[lesliekatya]

We use find my iPhone all the time. My oldest is 14 and has no problem with me tracking her - my husband and I do it to each other. We're not obsessive, just nosy. I like to know if he's still at the office so I don't have to call him and interrupt him and ask him if he's coming home soon. We also use it all the time to find phones lost in the house. It's great because you can make it make a sound even if it's on vibrate.

 

[JanaDee]

How about this for a scary story...My dd had this turned on, phone got smashed. She found one of those places online that buys broken phones, they sent an envelope, and she sent the phone on its merry way. A few months later, she starts getting random texts, emails, phone calls from an odd number, which she ignored. But, this guy was REALLY trying to get in touch with her and started sending her pictures of herself- did I mention he was in Russia?! Turns out she left the find my iphone on when she sold the phone. Because of what that function is intended for, only she could turn it off, and he needed her to turn it off so he could use it himself.

Yes, if you sell your iphone, you MUST turn off Find my Iphone first, or the phone is worthless.

 

[wenrob]

How about this for a scary story...My dd had this turned on, phone got smashed. She found one of those places online that buys broken phones, they sent an envelope, and she sent the phone on its merry way. A few months later, she starts getting random texts, emails, phone calls from an odd number, which she ignored. But, this guy was REALLY trying to get in touch with her and started sending her pictures of herself- did I mention he was in Russia?! Turns out she left the find my iphone on when she sold the phone. Because of what that function is intended for, only she could turn it off, and he needed her to turn it off so he could use it himself.

This is by design so that if the phone is stolen it becomes useless to someone trying to sell/use it. If the phone is inoperable it can be done online through iCloud.com. I'm curious, how did he get her phone, email etc? Was it left on the phone? Before selling, giving away, the phone should be completely wiped and reset to factory settings.

 

[nikkistevej]

That is funny you posted this, I have a crazy story from Find my Iphone from last week. DD12 and all the girls in their class leave their phone in their bookbags during gym in the locker room, only the kids in the class have access to the room. Her and another friends phones got stolen last Wednesday from their bookbags(gym is last period), so after school they told my DH, he went back in to school, called the police, etc. Well in the meantime he hit the Find my Iphone thing, nothing, well about 10 minutes later I get an email from the "app" that told me the address it was at!!! DH told the police, they went there, of course no answer.(I wouldn' answer either, if I was a sixth grader that just stole 2 Iphones- a 5s and 5c.)
So, they filed a report, I googled the address and who lives there, it tells me the names, ages, race, jobs of who live there(except anykids that liv there) THAT WAS CRAZY AND SCARY it was that easy. Anyway, in the meantime, the kid must have never powered off the phone, so DH goes to the area(there is a Royal Farm down the street) to do a "stakeout". In the meantime it keeps on being at that address, then it moves to a cemetary across the street from the house it bad been for a while. Him and DD go searching in the cemtary, hit the ringer, it starts ringing, they can hear it. Then it says it is in the house across the street in the backyard- it even shows the yard of the birds eye view(next to the cemetary), the house was abandoned. They call the police, didn't want to get shot for going in some abandoned yard, polic come, we all go searching in the snow, FOUND THE FREAKIN PHONES right where it showed they were. Phones are fine, worked and all!!! So needless to say, they have narrowed it down to a few girls, they have made announcements at the school, etc. They will be in big trouble!!! But anyway the app really works, we couldn't believe we got them back!!!

 

[thiabelle]

I use it to "watch" my DD walk home from the bus stop (which is NOT close to our house). I am usually in meetings at work and can't be on the phone with her. She texts me of course and but there is something reassuring about seeing where she is. She knows that I can do this but I don't think it registers with her. She's 13 and doesn't seem to care (yet).

 

[si-am]

I have Find My Iphone for both my phone and my ipad. My ipad was stolen in a house burglary last year. It showed up a week later at a pawn shop, and even though I had a police report and everything, the police would do NOTHING to recover my ipad. They told me I could go to the pawn shop myself, which I did, but they denied having any iPads (even though it was showing up RIGHT there on the map!)

So it's kind of useless in terms of recovery, but at least I was able to lock down the device through the app.

 

[lauradis]

Its easy to track the Iphone, but not the child. I'm going to spend the night at Susie's house. leave I phone there and go spend the night at Johnny's house.

Really people your only tracking the phone, not the child or spouse.

 

[wenrob]

How many teens do you know that are ever less than a foot away from their phone? Or most anyone these days? We live in a world of constant communication. An unanswered text/phone call isn't going to go unnoticed. Kids are constantly on social media. They pretty much serve up what they're doing "live as it happens." An observant parent is going to figure out pretty quick if they're being played.

The teens I know are pretty transparent and don't have anything to hide. That's not to say there aren't ones that won't do what you suggest but that doesn't mean all kids are up to no good.

We use "share my location" as an extension of our communication and I think most people do. If someone is tracking someone else on the sly then there are a whole lot of other issues going on.