TV star turns losing his Apple Watch into a game

AppleInsider

Actor and TV host Joel McHale lost his Apple Watch on a flight and after tracking its whereabouts with Find My, has a special offer for its new owner.

Apple Watches have to be unpaired from an iPhone before anyone else can use them

"The Bear," "Community," and "Crime Scene Kitchen" star Joel McHale is seemingly resigned to having left his Apple Watch behind on a flight. After discovering that he'd forgotten it, he checked Find My -- and then took to Instagram.

McHale's Instagram post (source: Instagram)

The comments that followed his post do include some wondering "who takes their watch off on a plane?" Others suggested going to the house McHale showed in a Find My screenshot.

That shot did show the Apple Watch as being in one of perhaps seven buildings, so it wasn't as if McHale were giving out a specific address. Nonetheless, showing an area did risk prompting people to visit.

In this case, the Apple Watch was mislaid rather than stolen, so it wouldn't be a thief who was at the area pictured. Police advise that people can use Find My to help inform authorities where a device is, but they must not attempt to confront anyone.

But another suggested the Apple Watch may have been above them all -- on another flight out of the area. Find My will show the last known location of a device so conceivably even if McHale had checked again a few minutes later, it might still be showing the same spot.

However, if it really were on a flight, he could have expected Find My to show the Apple Watch as moving, at the very least when the aircraft next landed.

McHale's offer of giving the Apple Watch to its "new owner" if they are even close guessing his passcode, is fun but nonsense. Even with the passcode, the Apple Watch will remain paired to McHale's iPhone.

When you intentionally give away or sell an Apple Watch, it must first be unpaired from the owner's iPhone. That disables Activation Lock, and allows the new owner to pair it to their own iPhone.

None of which would be an issue for McHale if he hadn't taken his Apple Watch off. It's not clear why he did, but he is a demonstration of just one reason why it's a particularly bad idea to not keep your Apple Watch on while you're on the go.



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pdnoble

Someone on the cleaning crew could be a plausible explanation for why it might have ended up later in Newark. 

JeanPierreDeElle

Of course, there’s another possibility behind this story.
”Any publicity is good publicity” is as the saying goes…..

Graeme000

AppleInsider said:

In this case, the Apple Watch was mislaid rather than stolen, so it wouldn't be a thief who was at the area pictured. 

Isn’t that still stolen? It didn’t belong to the person who took it. It should have gone to a lost and found. 

macgui

Graeme000 said:

AppleInsider said:

In this case, the Apple Watch was mislaid rather than stolen, so it wouldn't be a thief who was at the area pictured. 

Isn’t that still stolen? It didn’t belong to the person who took it. It should have gone to a lost and found. 

Someone takes something that doesn't belong to them pretty much meets most definitions of stealing. He mislaid it, someone else stole it. Now a cleaner might have found it and "took it home for safe keeping" until... What? A reward was announced? Until someone in the 'hood could unlock it? Sure. It left the plane and the airport and wasn't turned in to lost and found and is residing in New Jersey. Separate vacations are thing. He wasn't robbed. Wherever it is that's what it was, stolen. I think AI is imposing the "Finders-Keepers" doctrine.

If walking down the street I see a $20 bill and keep it, that's finders-keepers. If I'm cleaning a plane and find an article left behind and keep it, color it any way you like, it's stealing.

AI said:
The comments that followed his post do include some wondering "who takes their watch off on a plane?"

I've taken mine off a couple of times depending on temperature and humidity. The mineral back pressed against my skin gets very itchy and uncomfortable. Then it goes into a zipped pocket. I take it off a couple of times a day for the same reason pretty much wherever I am.

Rogue01

With the passcode, you can factory reset the watch with the erase everything command and that unpairs it from the phone.  You have to do that whenever your own watch loses the pairing to the phone.  The only way to re-pair the watch to the phone is to do the erase command and start over.