If you’re going to steal an iPad, try not to target an Apple employee.
Case in point: two thieves had the bad luck to swipe a pair of iPads from the home of an Apple employee in San Jose.
The 31-year-old employee had already installed Apple’s Find my iPhone app, a free service to MobileMe paying subscribers that launched days just days earlier.
He called the police, then fired up the service from his iPhone. When the police arrived, they tracked the iPad and radioed in the location of the getaway car.
“He’s heading north; he just made a left,” the officers told the dispatcher.
Since they couldn’t pinpoint the exact car, they had to wait, watching the little icon move across a map of the city until it arrived in a cul-de-sac in a residential area where police could make their move.
By the end of the day, officers had returned all of the stolen equipment, identified by serial numbers, to the manager.
Two thieves in their early 30s had ransacked the Apple employees’ house for a total of $20,000 in computer equipment and other electronics including two iPads, an iBook, three laptops and an old PC, according to police reports.
