iPhone News Updated

Lost Hiker Saved by iPhone Flashlight

The iPhone can often help you in a pinch when you’re looking for directions or need to be reminded about an upcoming meeting. But for a Maryland man, it was a lifeline when he and his dog got lost during a New Year’s Eve hike.

“Having a charged phone made a world of difference,” Christopher Tkacik told My Fox DC. “If I didn’t have a phone, I would have been stuck really bad.”

Tkacik and Boo were hiking in Gambrill State Park, just northwest of Frederick, Md. After they crossed the same creek four times, he realized they were lost and called police. The sheriff then dispatched a helicopter, Fox said.

But it wasn’t his phone’s GPS that was instrumental in Tkacik’s rescue. The 42-year-old lawyer said the Maps app kept telling him he was in a location he knew to be incorrect. However, his iPhone was able to work like his own personal distress flare.

Once he heard the helicopter hovering above, Tkacik turned on the iPhone’s flashlight, so they could see where he was.

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Cops Helped Apple Hunt for Lost iPhone

History does repeat itself: San Francisco Police Department confirms it helped Apple in a hunt for a lost iPhone 5 prototype that went missing in July. Don’t hold your breath, though — no photographic evidence is available this time, as it was the case with the lost iPhone 4 prototype last year.

Just a few hours later after denying any involvement in the iPhone 5 prototype hunt, San Francisco police spilled the beans. SFPD says four of its officers accompanied in plainclothes two Apple investigators in the unusual search, led by Apple’s GPS trace on the device. The officers apparently never entered the man’s house, while Apple’s security officials scoured the 22-year-old man’s house and computer for any trace of the lost iPhone 5.

Still doubt what unreleased iPhone Apple was desperately seeking? Reuters has pieced it together — even SFPD named the Word document statement on the search “iphone5.doc.” What’s unclear is whether Apple managed to find the lost iPhone 5 prototype. CNet says the prototype might have been sold on Craigslist for a mere $200 (last year’s iPhone prototype finder got $5000 for the phone, trial is ongoing).

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