It’s about time Google baked a service for tracking lost phones into Android
For everything Android has, there was one thing that always had me scratching my head. Why no native way to track a lost or stolen phone? I know you’ll all hate me for saying it, but the iPhone has had this for a while now. And come on, it’s Google. They have one of the best mapping protocols in the world right at their fingertips. They track your every move with Google Now and other location services already. So why did it take until now for the team to unveil Android Device Manager, a service that will help in recovering a misplaced or wayward droid.
Android Device Manager will rollout later this month for devices running Android 2.2 or higher. It’s features are pretty standard for a service of this kind. You can locate your phone on a map, trigger the ringer to help guide you to a device that might have fallen under the couch, or wipe data remotely in case the handset was stolen. It’s stuff that plenty of other security-oriented apps have offered for some time now as third-parties. It seems like a logical inclusion for a basic element of a smartphone operating system.
Regardless, it’s here now, and it only makes sense to enroll your device as soon as possible. Android Device Manager will be accessible from the web as well as a soon-to-be-available app.
[via Google]