New iPhone App May Help Stem the Tide of Electronics Thefts

An application on a Queens woman's stolen iPhone may help recover her phone and also lead to the arrest of a criminal.

The woman, whose name was not released, was walking on Liberty Avenue near 11th Street in Ozone Park, Queens around 8:00pm Monday when a man bumped into her, snatched her black iPhone from her pocket, and ran away, reported the NY Daily News.

Thanks to an application the woman installed on her smartphone called iGotYa, when the unfortunate thief tried to unlock the iPhone he had just stolen, the app took a silent snapshot photo of the criminal and emailed it to the woman. The application also tracks the phone's location.

She recognized the thief and then passed the crystal-clear picture on to police. Now the thug's photo has been published in the media and is circulating across the World Wide Web.

With the growing tide of electronic thefts occurring all across the city, smartphone apps like iGotYa could be a reasonable and affordable solution -- not only for deterring crime, but also catching criminals.

The iGotYa app costs around $7, available only through Cydia Apps.

There are two important considerations, however, if you're thinking of purchasing iGotYa: 

1. In order to use the application on your phone, it must be "jailbroken." Jailbreaking opens your phone up to a multitude of applications Apple does not offer its users. Apple has a similar, proprietary application which also can track down a lost or stolen phone, but their app can cost up to $100.
2. Also, if you don’t have an iPhone 4, you don’t have a front facing camera, and this makes it almost impossible to capture a picture of the thief's face.

See attached Video.