How to Use Location Services on a Mac or an iPhone

Over the past few years, Apple has brought us many breakthrough location-based features on both the Mac and iOS devices. The first of these features was Find My iPhone, which allows users to search for their lost or stolen device. The newest services, Find My Friends, lets you keep track of family or friends during outings or other events. With these two features, it’s clear that being able to easily share your location, or track your device, is the way of the future.

What You Need:

>> iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad running iOS 5
>> Find My Friends App
>> Apple ID linked with iCloud
>> Mac running Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2 or higher

1. Using Find My iPhone and Mac to Find a Lost or Stolen Device

If you have ever misplaced one of your iOS devices, then you can definitely appreciate the services that Apple provides with Find My iPhone (and most recently Find My Mac). To enable these services, you only need an Apple ID.

The process for turning on Find My iPhone is the same on any iOS device.

To enable Find My iPhone on your iOS devices (including iPod touch and iPad), navigate to Settings > iCloud, and sign in with your Apple ID. After the signing is complete, you will be able to flip the switch for “Find My iPhone” to ON.

Compatible Macs will allow you turn on Find My Mac in the iCloud preference pane.

Turning Find My Mac on is just as easy. In Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2, navigate to System Preferences > iCloud, and check the box next to “Find My Mac.” You may get a notification about allowing location services on your Mac. If you do get an alert, click Allow.

After linking your devices to iCloud’s Find My iPhone/Mac service, log into iCloud.com with the same Apple ID used to add your devices to the service. After logging in, click on the Find My iPhone icon.

Tap on the Refresh button at the top of the Devices list to update the location on-demand.

You'll see a screen that shows all of your devices that are linked to the service. Clicking on the small GPS dot that appears on the map will present you with options for tracking down your device. “Play Sound or Send Message” will let you send a push notification to your device that will also play a high-pitched sound to hopefully alert someone. Remote Lock lets you set a passcode on your device so that no one else will be able to unlock your device and begin using it. And, if all else fails, you can perform a Remote Wipe on your device to clear all of the data on your devices. You can do the same with all compatible Macs.

2. Using Find My Friends to Keep Track of People

Find My Friends is a new application that Apple launched with iOS 5. This application is similar to other location-sharing apps in that lets you subscribe to the location of other iOS devices. These applications are useful when planning a family outing, or a group outting where you need to keep track of a lot of people. There are two types of friendships available in the Find My Friends app: Permanent and Temporary.

Tap on the Invite Friends button to begin.

Tapping the All tab will let you create a permanent invite that lets you subscribe to location updates from a particular iOS device for an indefinite amount of time.

Tapping on the Temporary tab will let you create a temporary friendship that lets you subscribe to updates from someone only for a specified amount of time. During the invitation process, you can schedule the time that the location updates will expire. When that date arrives, the person will be removed from this Temporary section.

You can add multiple people to a temporary event by adding more email addresses to the “To:” field.

When inviting someone to share their location updates, you will need to type in the email address (or phone number) that is linked to the other person’s Apple ID.  You will also be able to type in a message, or if you chose to create a temporary invite, you will be able to specify an event name and the date the updates will end.

After your friends or family accept your invitation, they will appear in the All tab.

You can tap on your friends or family in the “All” to see a geo-located address and Google map of their location, but the magic really happens when you tap on View Map in a temporary location event. On a Google map, you will be able to see the locations of everyone in the group.

Tap on the location button in the toolbar to turn on automatic location updating; otherwise, press the refresh button at the top of the screen to manually update.

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