Apple develops the anti-theft function that was missing from the iPhone

Unfortunately, having your cell phone stolen It is a situation that many people have had to suffer. If, in addition, the theft has literally taken your phone out of your hand, not only will you be scared, but the thief will also get your phone unlocked and can access all your apps. Apple is working on a feature to prevent precisely this

Theft detection. The information comes from the internal iOS code to which 9to5mac has had access. It details a function that will detect when an iPhone has been taken from its owner’s hands, automatically blocking it. It doesn’t prevent it from being stolen, but at least it makes it inaccessible, something that may deter some thieves.

How it works. This function takes advantage of mobile sensors such as the accelerometer to identify the typical “pull” in this type of quick theft, causing the mobile to lock immediately. To determine that it has been a theft, take into account other factors such as the distance to a paired Apple Watch or whether the device is in an unknown location.

Android already had it. Surely many of you are thinking about it since you read the headline and indeed it is: Apple has not invented anything. Google presented this feature at Google I/O in May 2024 and implemented it at the end of that same year. It does exactly the same thing: it detects when the phone is “torn” from our hand and blocks it.

Why is it important. That Apple is going to arrive later does not mean that this function is not important, especially considering that iPhones are the favorite target of thieves. There are no statistics broken down by type of mobile phone or by type of theft, but In 2024 the OCU mentioned that in Spain around 250,000 mobile phones were stolen a year, so a function of this type will be very useful for many victims.

Protection in case of theft. Apple already has this feature in case of theft that applies measures such as requiring Face ID authentication to perform certain actions and applying a security delay when making critical changes such as changing the Apple ID password or changing the passcode. It lacked extra protection in case our cell phone was taken away while it was unlocked. It’s unclear if it will arrive with the next iOS 26 update, but the fact that it’s in the code indicates that it shouldn’t take too long to arrive.

Image | Xataka with Gemini

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