After Apple and Samsung, also Google could start using Android devices to search for a lost or stolen phone or tablet.
Giuseppe Croce Journalist
Peppe Croce, journalist since 2008, deals with electronic devices and new technologies applied to the automotive world. He joined Libero Tecnologia in 2018.
After Apple, Google also introduces its lost or stolen device search feature. As is already the case with iPhone, iPad and other members of the Cupertino family, Big G has chosen to develop a customized version of the feature that could be called “Find My Android”. Users will be able to locate and recover devices managed by the robot operating system, with a novelty compared to the past.
At a very short time after the release, some experts from the site XDA Developers got to work on version 21.24.13 of Google Play Services published on the beta channel of the Mountain View Os. This is a space dedicated to those who are willing to carry out tests on the software, in order to highlight any bugs and restore the proper functioning before the update becomes available to everyone. Although it doesn’t have an official name yet, in the strings found within the package the service has been described as what “allows the phone to help locate your own device or that of other people”.
Find My Android, how does it work?
First of all it’s fair to specify that Android can already count on a similar feature. We’re talking about what is called “Find My Device” and that allows you to track phones or tablets registered to your Google account. And this is the limitation that makes the difference with the recent evolution of the bitten Apple.
In fact, if for Big G so far it has been possible to search only on devices that you own, or that are connected to your personal profile, Apple has created a real network in which anyone can help find someone else’s device, which is identified anonymously. But that’s not all, because the network of anonymously connected Apple devices also allows you to find any items connected to the new Apple AirTags.
With such a system, every Android smartphone in the world (and there are over 3 billion of them) could help find the single missing or stolen device. Such a network, then, could also be used by Google on a possible “Pixel Tag”. For the sake of completeness, let’s remember that Samsung also has a similar function but the network is composed only of other Samsung devices.
Find My Android, when will it go live?
There are currently no indications about the future release of the feature. As a result, “Find My Android” may not become part of the features of the OS release 12 or be present only on certain phones of the more than three billion tools (not exclusively smartphones) equipped with the robot Os.
Surely, if so, Google itself will provide more information on the introduction of the feature. And already many are wondering if there will be the possibility to choose between opt-in and opt-out from the service, a detail that would greatly reduce the number of devices available but give a valid support in the protection of user privacy: what will Big G choose to do? We just have to wait.