OMG: I Got My iPhone Back

Two weeks ago it was just an iPhone 5C. Now, inert though it may be, it is a totem of a connectedness beyond technological ties. 

The display on my home cordless phone indicated the caller was “T-Mobile.” I assumed it was some sort of robo-call from a political campaign, a debt consolidator or the Red Cross – all of whom would be seeking “blood” of some kind or another.

It was, in fact, “Ingrid,” her real name, from the T-Mobile store at the local mall. She was calling to tell me that someone had turned in my lost iPhone 5C.

It was a week after I’d lost the phone while on a short bike hike – the result of a too-shallow pocket. I had been unable to find the phone after retracing my path.

When I lost the phone it had been powered down and password protected so I didn’t bother trying to locate it using the tools for doing so provided by Apple. I had had the phone for two years and had certainly gotten my money’s worth. The phone’s reaction time was beginning to erode and I had an old Blackberry Z10 I was interested in bringing back to life.

I set out the next day with the old Blackberry and an iPhone 6 that had been a gift but never used. My main concern was recovering the photos on the old 5C. I wasn’t sure they’d been backed up.

I was able to recover and restore all the apps and content from the 5C via the iCloud application onto the iPhone 6 with the help of a patient Apple Store clerk. The Blackberry’s battery was dead so I picked up an inexpensive LG Android phone at the T-Mobile store and transferred my T-Mobile number to the LG.

So, by the time I had news of the returned 5C, it had been fully replaced. But the fact of its return, at a time when electronics are routinely and swiftly flipped on Ebay or Craig’s List, restored my faith.

One of my sons asked if I had wiped the old phone, which I had not done. A year or two ago I left an iPad behind wedged in my business class seat during a short flight. I never saw that device again. It left me a little uneasy that I had never password protected the iPad.

Airports are where I do most of my losing of things. I twice lost my driver’s license going through security and both times was able to recover said credentials from the lost and found at Dulles Airport from a bin filled with the driver’s licenses of many other hapless travelers.

Ingrid at the T-Mobile store checked my driver’s license and then handed me my old 5C – like a token of humanity lost or forgotten. She said the person who turned it in didn’t leave behind her contact information - just a Good Samaritan anonymously bringing a little sunshine into my Saturday. The 5C is intact and though it is no longer connected to its terrestrial network – it has connected me with the spirit of good will in all of us.

Roger C. Lanctot is Associate Director in the Global Automotive Practice at Strategy Analytics. More details about Strategy Analytics can be found here: https://www.strategyanalytics.com/access-services/automotive#.VuGdXfkrKUk