Apple Watch Theft Protection Leaves Gaping Hole is a post by Craig Lloyd from Gotta Be Mobile.
If your Apple Watch ever gets stolen, good luck getting it back, as it’s been discovered that the wearable doesn’t have any considerable theft protection.
The nice thing about the iPhone and iPad is that Apple has made it really difficult for someone to steal a device and use it as their own, essentially turning it into a literal brick. However, it turns out that the Apple Watch has no such security feature.
As discovered by iDownloadBlog, the Apple Watch only protects your data from thieves and not the actual device, and this is because the Apple Watch lacks any type of Activation lock that’s featured on other iOS devices.
If a thief wanted to steal an iPhone or iPad, they would essentially be stealing a hunk of metal and glass, as they wouldn’t be able to factory reset it and use it as their own, nor would anyone else they try to sell it to. However, the Apple Watch doesn’t have this feature. If someone stole your Apple Watch, they can easily reset it and either resell for a profit or use it as their own quickly and easily, which could potentially encourage more Apple Watch theft than expected.
Apple introduced Activation Lock with iOS 7, which prevents iPhones and iPads from being stolen, or at least deters thieves from doing much else with an iPhone after it’s stolen. When Find My iPhone is enabled on a user’s iPhone, it essentially locks that iPhone to that user’s Apple ID account. What this means is that even when the iPhone is wiped, the device will still require the original Apple ID and password before someone else can use it as their own.
The video above shows the simple process that users can go through to completely wipe an Apple Watch and use it with another iPhone without anything getting in the way. There was absolutely verification process to go through and no steps to confirm the Apple ID that was used previously on the device.
Of course, the iPhone has gone several years without this kind of feature at first, but considering that Apple has come a long way and introduced Activation Lock, there doesn’t seem to be a reason not to include it on a new device.
Obviously, the Apple Watch is a bit different and Activation Lock how it is probably won’t do much on the Apple Watch anyway, which means the engineers at Apple will have to think of a way to better protect the wearable in an event that it’s ever stolen, and we’re pretty sure that the company is currently brainstorming ideas as we speak.
Also, something else to consider is that an Apple Watch is probably a lot harder to steal than an iPhone or an iPad, since the device is strapped to your wrist, whereas an iPhone or iPad can be easily pick-pocketed without you even knowing. In this sense, we wouldn’t be surprised if Apple put some sort of Activation Lock on the backburner for the Apple Watch.
Apple announced the Apple Watch back in September at its iPhone 6 event, and officially launched the device late last month. The wearable starts at $349 for the Apple Watch Sport, and jumps up to $549 for the stainless steel version, while the gold Apple Watch Edition costs a cool $10,000. However, you may want to just go ahead and get the Apple Watch Sport, despite its entry-level status.
Apple Watch Theft Protection Leaves Gaping Hole is a post by Craig Lloyd from Gotta Be Mobile.
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