Whether it's tossed somewhere in the house, under the car seat, or out and about with someone who shouldn't have taken it in the first place, our smartphone can disappear in an instant. iOS devices have had a location feature for a while, but Android is not far behind: all you have to do now is type "Find My Phone" into Google's search box.
Back in the days of the Nokia 1100, the ideal solution for locating a mobile phone was to make it ring, but the best part is that this solution hasn't lost its relevance. Smartphones, like keys and the remote control, have a special talent for vanishing into thin air. We had it in hand five minutes ago—how can it just not appear? Previously, we've come across several software-based solutions, and physical ones like Tile. By itself, the Android operating system offers several resources that let users locate their device, and as of last Wednesday, that function was extended to our web browsers.
Assuming the smartphone is on and properly configured, all you have to do is type Find My Phone into Google's search engine. As a result, a small window will appear with data from Google Maps, the location via GPS or WiFi (depending on the device configuration), and the option to click "Ring" if you want it to sound. Needless to say, if you have GPS and the Location option disabled on the smartphone, all you'll get from Find My Phone is a humble error message. For now, the search must be done in English—none of that "find my phone" in your own language.
From the start, it's clear that this new extension for location functions works better if your Android smartphone has a relatively recent version of the OS. My ancient Galaxy Ace, which will keep rocking Gingerbread until it blows up, was located by the new feature, but between the lack of precision (18 meters as margin of error is… too much) and some previous errors, I have no doubt that Find My Phone prefers versions 4.x or Lollipop, which by the way has yet to surpass the 6% adoption barrier.
