Google Announces Android Device Manager For Later This Month
An anonymous reader writes "Google today announced Android Device Manager, a new app coming later this month that helps you find your lost phone or tablet. The service will be available for devices running Android 2.2 (Froyo) or above. Details are scarce right now, but Google does say Android Device Manager will let you ring your phone at maximum volume so you can find it, even if it's been silenced. We also know you'll need to be signed into your Google Account to use the service."
Seems to fill the purpose of lot of other apps like Android lost, etc... What I would really like to see is a nice way to migrate from an old phone to a new one.
Finnally! Google copies Find My iPhone.
This just goes to show why Android fragmentation is largely a non-issue, especially for users. Most of the new features are delivered as apps which are compatible with all versions going way back.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I hope they require some hard proof of identity to use this service (more than just "signed into your Google Account"). It allows you to:
Not a tool I'd want falling into the wrong hands.
It checks with the NSA where your phone is, and they let Google know.
...I really need this.
I am not sure why this is news. The free version of Lookout provides the same features. I have noticed it being pre-installed by some carriers like Sprint.
I want remote brick, if I lose my phone, I want it being completely useless to the next person, no firmware flash, no nothing; a paper weight. I don't want it being sold off for a tenner and sent to another country that doesn't subscribe to the block list.... Actually, you know what? I want it catch fire, I want it to be an incinerated paper weight!
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
How can I sign into my Google account if I'm out and about and lose my phone when the Google two-factor authentication SMS message that would let me sign in on someone else's phone or computer is going to be sent to my phone.
Another forced G+ plot to me.
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Something is very wrong if this tracking feature can be installed remotely on your device from google at any time.
I was hoping for an actual management system. So you can you know, 'manage' your portable devices from a central point.
Being able to make them scream when they are lost.. .*yawn*
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I've been needing this for clients and their employees for far too long!
Owner of AV Computer Doctor, Mother of Ventura computer repair. http://ventura-computer-repair.com/
...because avast! has been offering this for a while now. Plus, I'm not sure I want allow more Google access into my life.
It's called Google Device Policy, but it's only been available for Google Apps for Business users
;-)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.enterprise.dmagent&hl=en
It's great to have a general user option soon, but for those of you with business needs, the option is already there
Hopefully they've thought through the 2-step verification process...I'd hate to have to log in to google only to find out they sent a text to my 'silent' phone.
Do any of the alternatives that people know of work on a wifi-only tablet?
"Find My iPhone" is really useful for tracking down the children's iPods if they're just lost in the house (or garden).
Sometimes a tablet goes missing and it would be helpful to be able to make it ping in a similar way.
So after a specified amount of time they start get 200 buck bill for planting trees.
With a hotmail account and my AU$160 Nokia Lumia 520 you get all the same features. Ring, Lock, Erase and you get to see it on a map too. Pretty cool for a budget smartphone.
Considering this is an optional app that you have to download (rather than being baked into an Android release), what does it offer that loads of similar free apps on the Google Play store have offered for years now (OK, apart from the fact that it's an app from Google of course)?
I'd have been more impressed if this had come with the Android 4.3 release to be honest and might actually be one of the very few pre-installed Android apps that could be justify being uninstallable.