The iPhone is, at this point, fading technologically. Even Apple is struggling to care about its flagship product. But, it’s still really popular, and thus, thieves in NYC will keep stealing them. A lot.
And we mean a lot. So much that if the iPhone didn’t exist, NYC crime rates would drop by double digits.
…the NYPD announced that there were 16,000 Apple-picking thefts in 2012. This equates to 14 percent of all New York City crime. Indeed, 45 percent of all 2013 robberies in New York City involved cell phones. More than half involved iPhones.
To give you an idea of just how common this is as a crime, 414 people were murdered in NYC last year. So, yeah, it’s pretty common.
This isn’t random chance, either. iPhones are so popular that there are organized criminal gangs that go out of their way to steal them in order to resell them, so much so that the NYPD is asking pawn shops to track each iPhone they buy.
Part of the problem, of course, is that people don’t properly secure their phone; generally the way these things work is that they’re snatched out of your hand by a good sprinter. Then the thing’s wiped and sold off before the user can get to a computer to shut it down.
Similarly, the city would like to make Apple and other device manufacturers install a “kill switch” in every phone, something Apple has been reluctant to do because they’ve been on the Internet and know what a golden opportunity for trolling that is. In the long run, though, the best thing to do to keep your iPhone secure is to keep a tight grip on it and limit use to situations where it’s not easy to snatch out of your hand. Or maybe disguise it as a calculator.
