Meanwhile, I was telling her about how we’d once lost a Garmin Forerunner watch for weeks between the front seat and center console in our Subaru Outback and how our son Tristan’s Apple Watch had similarly disappeared earlier in the year. I had searched the passenger side, and she’d looked on the driver side, but just to be complete, I suggested we switch sides so each had a fresh pair of eyes. So we rushed outside and tore her big SUV apart, looking under the dog rugs and usual detritus that accumulates in a rural vehicle. “Could you have lost it in the car?” I tapped Find My’s Play Sound button but was told that the sound would play once the iPad connected next-had we been at her house instead of mine, it might have worked. “Find My says it’s here at my house,” I told her. It took me a few seconds to realize what that meant since I was expecting either “No location found” or a spot somewhere on the western side of New York State. The other iPad, though, the one we thought might have been near Buffalo, listed my address as its location. It was showing up at her house, as it should. It listed two iPads, and she said one was an older model that her husband used. After she arrived, I opened the Find My app on her iPhone and tapped Devices at the bottom. Monday was already shaping up to be an insanely busy day for me, so I asked her to come over. I was going to have to help her erase her iPad remotely and change passwords to all the accounts she could remember. The whole situation screamed, “Hack me!” Even worse, when I asked, she said that yes, her email address was also written on that piece of paper. In other words, she had left behind a device that could be unlocked trivially, along with a list of all her important passwords. Attaching it to a portable device is a serious mistake, and I’ll be having a chat with another neighbor who reportedly recommended this approach to her. Writing down passwords is far from ideal, but as long as the paper is securely stored, it’s not the end of the world. On the inside flap of her iPad case, she had taped a piece of paper that listed all her passwords.The iPad’s passcode was 1234, which is so common that the very first person who heard this story interrupted, “And let me guess, her passcode was 1234.” If you or anyone you know has a passcode that’s sequential numbers or all the same number, encourage them to change it immediately-those are way too easy for anyone to guess.I hadn’t previously internalized that she traveled with it or I would have said something on my previous visit. Most of the time, when someone calls me with a problem, they’re overreacting, but there were two facts about her iPad that caused me to worry for real. When she called the hotel, the people at the desk weren’t helpful or reassuring. When she got home, she couldn’t find her iPad Pro anywhere, so she assumed that she had left it in the hotel. Over the weekend, she had been at a dog obedience competition with her poodles on the other side of the state, staying overnight at a small hotel. You can’t go wrong with pie.īeverly called me Monday in a panic. Nevertheless, it’s rewarding to help her solve problems and show her what her gear can do for her, partly because doing so gives me insight into places where Apple’s interfaces are confusing or overwhelming for someone like her. At the time, I didn’t realize this might be a trend. And she does lose things-on my second visit a few weeks ago, I helped her order a new sport loop-style Apple Watch band so she would be less likely to take the watch off and forget where she’d put it. What she’s not, however, is expert in the use of her Apple devices: an iPhone 12, a 12-inch iPad Pro, and an Apple Watch Series 6. I suspect that she’s in her 80s, and while she claims otherwise, everything I’ve observed suggests that she’s plenty sharp mentally. In a situation that may be familiar to many TidBITS readers, I’ve recently found myself providing technical assistance to an elderly neighbor-call her Beverly. The Case of the Missing iPad Pro: Find My for the Win
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