What to do when you lose your iPhone (and what I should have done before I lost mine)

Today’s the day I’ll find out whether my iPhone is gone forever. I misplaced it on Saturday night, most likely on the all-night bus, and since the TTC Lost Articles Office was closed for the long weekend, they won’t get a new batch of unclaimed items until today. When I call them this afternoon, they’ll either tell me I can come pick up my phone, or tell me I have to replace it.

This will be the last in a series of steps I’ve taken to try and recover the damned thing. There aren’t many places I could have left it; I had it when I got on the bus, which I accidentally rode to the end of the line after falling asleep, and I noticed it was gone once I got out of the cab I had to take back to my neighbourhood. The bus and the cab are the only two places I could have left it, and in each case it was either handed over to a lost and found, or stolen by whoever spotted it first.

On Sunday morning, I did all the things you’re supposed to do when you lose your phone. I called it, first of all, and it rang before going to voicemail, confirming that it was on and working. My wife texted my email address to the phone, so it would show up on the lock screen. I reported it to the police, in case someone turned it in. I posted a notice on Craigslist. I called the phone company to disable the service, and if need be, I’ll call Apple to disable the phone. The TTC is the last lead I’ve got, and if my phone doesn’t turn up in today’s batch of items, I figure I can kiss it goodbye.

The frustrating fact of the matter, of course, is that I probably wouldn’t have had to go to all this trouble if I’d installed a simple app on my phone before losing it. Find My iPhone seemed to be the favourite among all the people on Twitter who replied to my call for help, but it doesn’t work unless you’ve set it up beforehand. The same goes for iCloud, which I also hadn’t been using. I’ve learned my lesson, and I’ll be sure to set up these apps as soon as possible, either on my current phone or the next one.

Feel free to share your tips if you’ve ever been in a similar situation. In the meantime, place your bets. Am I ever going to see this phone again, or am I going to have to replace it?

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