iOS 15 can find your iPhone even when it's powered off or factory reset by thieves

With iOS 15, you can still track your iPhone through the Find My network even when the device is powered off. It seems that with iOS 15, even when the phone is turned off, the phone has not really 'powered off' completely, it is still in a super battery saving state and acts like an AirTag, allowing any iOS device to nearby receives a Bluetooth signal and sends back its location.

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This also means that if your iPhone runs out of battery, you still have a good chance of finding its location in a few hours. In fact, Apple says location tracking will even continue to work even if the phone is reset to factory settings with Activation Lock enabled.

"Locate your devices using the Find My network even when they're turned off. This can help you locate a lost device if the battery is low or may have been turned off by a thief," Apple said. Interestingly, Apple generally doesn't advocate using Find My features to prevent theft.

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Apple notifies users about this new feature with a warning dialog box when the first iOS 15 updated iPhone is running low on battery.

If you want to actually turn off your iPhone, you can change that in Settings and disable Find My network mode entirely.

Lesley Montoya

Update 08 June 2021