An excerpt from today's story on The Verge.
Here's the sad truth: the very expensive Apple Watch is now also the easiest Apple gadget to steal. For Apple's smartwatch, there is no such thing as Activation Lock, the anti-theft measure that makes stolen iPhones useless to thieves.
Introduced in 2013, Activation Lock requires your Apple ID password after a factory reset and before it can be activated and used once more. If someone else has your iPhone but doesn't have your password, all they can really do is sell Apple's smartphone for parts (or, you know, be a decent person and return it). Police immediately praised the feature and urged everyone to switch it on.
The Apple Watch doesn't have Activation Lock or any equivalent designed for a wrist-worn device. Nor can you locate it with Apple's "Find My iPhone" app, which can track the last known whereabouts of your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or even a Mac. That second part makes sense since the Apple Watch doesn't have a GPS chip inside.
But the smartwatch can connect to known Wi-Fi networks, so theoretically Apple could offer some idea of where it last held an internet connection, even if there's no way to guarantee that's where your Watch stayed.
As of now, the option's just not there. Your Watch can help find your phone, but nothing exists to help recover the Watch.
With the product being so new, there haven't been many headlines about Apple Watch muggings or ugly theft incidents yet, and hopefully there won't be. But take a look at Craigslist or eBay, and you'll see Apple's smartwatch selling for way above its retail value. For thieves, the temptation is there.
Apple can play a huge part in dissuading them by making sure your Watch stays yours — or at least rendering it useless to anyone else.
Read the complete story >> HERE.
Credit: theverge.com
