How to find a lost smartphone

You love your smartphone. You never go anywhere without it and you have steadily loaded it up with more and more of your personal data. You have dozens of the latest and greatest apps, and you constantly reach for your phone to play video games, enjoy your favorite TV shows, and occasionally watch a full-length movie.

And then suddenly the unthinkable happens: Your smartphone is lost. Maybe you left it in the back of a taxi cab, or maybe it slipped out of your bag when you were checking in at the airport. Whatever happened, it’s now gone and your indispensable electronic friend has been replaced by a feeling of rising panic and the inevitable question: ‘What do I do now?’

Luckily, several apps have been developed for the sole purpose of finding lost cell phones. You no longer have to wait and hope that someone will find your phone, go through your address book and call up a friend. Now, you can be pro-active and start the search yourself. Here are just a few of the apps that can help:

iPhone users

Find My iPhone is a custom iPhone locator app, which is built into iOS, Apple’s mobile operating system. You go to Settings, tap iCloud, and enable Find My iPhone. Then if you misplace your phone, you can sign in to iCloudfrom any computer or web-enabled device. Find My iPhone will show you where your missing iPhone is on a map or play a sound to help you locate your phone if you think it's nearby.

Find My iPhone also includes Lost Mode. If your iPhone is missing, you can immediately lock your phone with a 4-digit passcode and send a message that will display a contact number on the home screen of your phone. This enables anyone finding the phone to call you from your locked screen without accessing any other data. While in Lost Mode, the device will also keep track of where it’s been and report back to you anytime you check in with the Find My iPhone app.

With this week's announcement of iOS 7, Apple has added another layer of security. Now turning off Find My iPhone or erasing your device requires your Apple ID and password. This is to combat the increasing threat of iPhone thieves, who are not looking to use your iPhone themselves but instead will seek to re-set the phone to its factory settings and sell it.

Find My iPhone can also continue to display the "please call me to return my iPhone" message even after the phone has been wiped. Again, it will be impossible to reactivate the phone or unlock the device without the owner's Apple ID and password.

Keep in mind that Find My iPhone and Lost Mode will only work if the phone is turned on and connected to a cellular or Wi-Fi network.