Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile
  3. News

Find my iPhone keeps sending concerned owners to the same wrong house in Atlanta

Lulu Chang
By

find my iphone app errors ipad
Technology has certainly progressed in leaps and bounds over the last few years, but it’s still by no means completely infallible. And one couple in Atlanta can attest to this fact with firsthand experience, as they’ve been paying for technology’s mistakes over the course of the last year. For some (annoying) reason, the generally well-regarded and useful Find My iPhone app has been sending the owners of missing smartphones straight to the home of Christina Lee and Michael Saba since February 2015, despite the fact that the couple is by no means engaged in some strange iPhone burglary scheme. Really, they’re just victims of tech gone very, very wrong.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this entire saga is that no one has yet specifically identified the cause behind the consistent errors. Over the last year, Lee and Saba have been disturbed over a dozen times (one month, it happened a stunning four times), by iPhone owners and sometimes, the police, demanding that the couple reveal the location of the missing phone. On one particularly dramatic occasion, the authorities came to their doorstep in search of a missing teenager whose phone had been tracked to Lee and Saba’s home. The two ultimately stood outside for over an hour as the police ransacked the residence, looking for both the missing girl and her phone.

Related Videos

Needless to say, that search (as well as all the others), came up empty.

For now, experts’ best guess is that there’s some issue with cell tower triangulation used in the Find My iPhone app. Alternatively, it could be a mistake in Wi-Fi map data that is being used by a number of different carriers. There’s no way to blame any specific company either — phone owners have used a number of carriers, including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Boost Mobile. And worse yet, there aren’t any governing bodies or companies responsible for dealing with this sort of issue — not the police, not the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), not the cell companies.

But the couple is hoping that they can do something to rectify the situation, and are planning on filing a complaint with both their local senator and the FCC.  “Public pressure is how stuff like this changes,” Saba said. “It sucks that it happens to us, but I hope our experience will lead to it not happening to anyone else.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
6 years later, the iPhone X still does one thing better than the iPhone 14 Pro
iPhone X.

I’ve been an iPhone user since the very beginning, starting with the original iPhone. You know, the one with the 3.5-inch display that was perfect at the time, making it super easy to use a phone with one hand? As the years go by, the iPhone — and every other smartphone out there — just get bigger and bigger. We now have phones that with almost 7-inch displays, and honestly, I don’t understand how anyone can comfortably use these giant phones — especially if you have smaller hands!

With the iPhone, we’ve gone from 3.5-inch to 4-inches, then 4.7-inches to 5.8-inches, and now the standard 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch of the iPhone 14/iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Plus/iPhone 14 Pro Max, respectively. I personally use an iPhone 14 Pro as my primary device, and while I have gotten used to the 6.1-inch size over the past few years, I still think it’s too big. In fact, the last perfect size iPhone was the iPhone XS with the 5.8-inch display ... and I really wish Apple would bring it back.
5.8 inches was a perfect middle ground

Read more
I love the Galaxy S23 — here are 5 things the iPhone still does better
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and Apple iPhone 14 Pro

Samsung’s Galaxy S23 has arrived to the masses, and it’s one of the best Android phones you can get right now, especially the S23 Ultra. However, for those who don’t need all of the fancy bells and whistles, like the S Pen and 200MP main camera, the regular S23 is also plenty powerful for the average person, especially if you prefer smaller devices.

I’ve been using the Galaxy S23 for the past few weeks, and so far, my experience has been delightful. I know that it’s still early on in the year, but for me, the S23’s small size is perfect and comfortable. Android also does a lot of things better than iOS, like individual volume controls and notifications, for example. But I am still primarily using my iPhone 14 Pro — despite Apple having some big flaws, such as overprocessing images after you capture them.

Read more
5 things we’d love to see at Google I/O 2023 (but probably won’t)
Google Pixel Watch on a wrist.

Google's annual developer conference, Google I/O, kicks off on May 10. Don't let the words "developer conference" put you off, though, as Google I/O is one of the biggest and most exciting shows of the year.

We've already covered what we expect to see at Google I/O 2023, and that list includes the Pixel 7a, Android 14, and even a Google Pixel Fold. But although those are all things we're really looking forward to and expecting to see, there are a number of reveals we'd also love to happen ... but are extremely unlikely to appear on the grand stage.

Read more