iPhone Killswitch: How To Enable Activation Lock

On Monday, California mandated that all smartphones ship with a killswitch installed and turned on by default. That’s very nice, but not as nice as Apple’s iPhone killswitch.

For example every iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 7, which as released in October 2013, already has killswitch technology built in. Here is how to turn on Apple’s iPhone killswitch feature, aka Activation Lock:

1. Setting Up Find My iPhone

— On your iPhone, iPad and/or iPod touch, go to Settings > iCloud > Sign in (if necessary)

2. Turn On Find My iPhone.

You are done — it’s really that easy! You shouldn’t have to do anything else until your iPhone is lost or stolen.

iPhone Killswitch: Enabling Activation Lock
If your iPhone has been lost or stolen, here is what to do. Get to an internet connected Mac or PC and log into your iCloud account. Click on Find My iPhone.

If your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch is turn on and connected to the net, Find My iPhone will display its location on a map. Recognize the location? Then you know where to start looking.

If your iPhone’s location is someplace unfamiliar or don’t see it on the map at all, you can activate the iPhone killswitch (aka Activation Lock) by putting it into “Lost Mode.”

In Lost Mode, will be locked until the correct Apple ID and password are entered. Additionally, you can force your iPhone to display a message…

In Lost Mode, you can even wipe your iPhone, preventing data theft.