Umpire strikes out as Find My iPhone goes horribly wrong

Unless you are Italian

Not sure if this has been pointed out yet, but he could have easily avoided the affray by pinging the device through FMI to make sure it was his.

Find My iPhone worked great for me...My friend and I were on the hop on hop off bus in London when we decided to get off at the last minute at one of the stops. It wasn't until about half an hour later that I realized I'd left my iPhone on the bus. So we go back to the bus stop where we got off, in hopes that the bus company's agent there could radio the bus driver and see if anyone had found it. Using "Find My iPhone" from my friend's phone, I was able to track my phone and could see that it was still moving along the bus' route. When they couldn't find it, we decided to jump in a cab and head the bus off on the other side of the city. So we jumped in a cab, all the while tracking the phone's whereabouts; I could tell it was still on the bus. Fifteen minutes later and on the other side of the city, as the cab was dropping us off, i saw the bus drive right past us...I recognized the driver, so I knew we had the right bus. We quickly jumped into another cab and gave chase. When we finally caught up to the bus, I got out of the cab...again, to now re-board the bus. Just as I was running toward the bus, it started to take off again...chasing after the bus again, this time on foot, I pounded on the back window and it finally stopped to let us on. Once back on the bus, I checked the GPS tracking and could see that the phone was indeed still somewhere on this bus, so we went up to where we had been sitting (front top window seat of course) and asked if anyone had seen the phone. People all around said others had already come looking for it (the employees we'd radio'd earlier) and that no one had found it. The couple sitting in our seats were an old Eastern European couple, sort if ignoring us and not speaking English; just shaking their heads "no", they hadn't seen it and to quit bothering them. So, using the Find My iPhone app, I sent a "pinging" noise to the phone; I had already tried calling the phone but it just went to voicemail. Due to the noise on the uncovered upper deck of the bus, I couldn't hear any ping. Luckily, however, a little girl sitting nearby heard the strange noise and asked if that was the noise my phone made, and pointed at the old woman who was sitting in my same seat. At this point the old woman, seeing everyone pointing at her purse, had no choice but to pull the phone out and play dumb saying "I found it on the seat and was just waiting for somebody to call it to give it back" (so she does speak English), as if I hadn't already tried that (and, besides, why didn't she just give it to the bus driver when she found it an hour or so earlier?)...we caught her red handed. 

Long story short...after a thrilling chase across London, an hour and a half later, I got my phone back :)

From my iPhone

He should have just called it.
If it was his, the 'thief' would've instinctively looked at the caller ID.

Time to toss the Ump in the Clink for a Mo.

I agree that punching someone who you *think* took your iPhone is wrong. What's the alternative? The problem is, law enforcement does nothing when you report your iPhone stolen, even when you give them a mostly precise latitude/longitude and the address associated with it. And, they won't even use your Find My iPhone feature if you give them access to it to do realtime tracking.

Furthermore, mobile providers like AT&T do not mark the iPhone's IMEI and serial number as stolen, so the next owner of the phone can simply sign up and never know the wiser.

If you shouldn't/can't take matters into your own hands when it's stolen, then what avenue is left? This feature becomes useless except for misplacing your phone.

The error was not confronting someone who stole the iPhone, the error was *assaulting* the person who (you thought), stole your iPhone.

Assault is never a good answer.

"I am the brute squad!". Quote from "The Princess Bride"

Just over the wire, it is being reported that Ipolito has become so notorious because of his behavioral problems that he decided to get away from it all and change his name. it is being reported that he has submitted papers to change his last name to Impolito.

so lemme guess, then the ump is going to sue apple because the app pointed him to the wrong spot?