
Due to exhaustion and the offer of a ride, I arrived to the Alicante airport
four hours before my flight. I mostly spent it sitting around with my eyes half
closed, half listening to podcasts. When it was getting close to boarding time,
I checked the monitor and it said that my flight was delayed. This was not good
news for me because I had a very tight 50 minute layover in Madrid to catch my
next flight. The monitor said it would be 15 minutes until the next information
about my flight, so I sat back down, read some tweets, and, for some reason, put
my phone between suitcase and my backpack on top of the suitcase. A few minutes
later, got up, leaving my bags within sight to glance at the monitor again. My
flight was boarding!

I went and grabbed my suitcase and backpack and rolled it towards the gate.
After about 15 meters, the podcast audio stopped in my AirPods. Ironically, I
was listening to a podcast about the new models of iPhone that were released
last week, none of which I’d rather have than the $1,500 in my bank account. I
reached down to my pocket to grab my phone to start the podcast again, only to
find my pocket empty! Then I remembered that I had put my phone between the
bags, and I looked, and it was not there. I walked back to where I had been
sitting, checking the floor along the entire 15 meters, but the phone could not
be seen! I retraced these 15 meters about five times before I was convinced that
it was not on the floor.

I looked at my Apple Watch, and it was showing the “not connected to phone”
icon, so the Watch could not see the phone either. I cursed under my breath. My
iPhone had fallen from its precarious place between my bags, and someone had
taken it.

> My flight was boarding.

I walked towards my gate and saw a line of about 25 people scanning their
boarding passes. I looked down at my watch to see the time to get an idea of if
I would make my next flight, and…

_My watch was connected to my phone!!_

One of the most useful features on the Apple Watch is the ability to make the
iPhone it’s paired with emit a loud beeping sound, even if it is in silent mode.
I’ve lost count of the number of times it has helped me locate my phone between
the couch cushions. I quickly swiped up and hit the “Ping” button. Ears wide
open, amidst the airport bustle…

I heard nothing. _Shit!_

Then it occurred to me that my iPad might have a better Bluetooth range than the
Watch, so I pulled out my iPad (wifi only, not cellular), which I had recently
had attached to the phone’s Personal HotSpot. After a moment of searching, push
notifications started rolling in. It was connected!!

I opened up the _Find iPhone_ app, which was ironically using the wifi hotspot
of the iPhone I was searching for to hit iCloud to ask the iPhone for it’s GPS
location to pass back to me through iCloud and then through the phone’s wifi to
me. There it was, on the map, very close to me. Before searching, I tapped the
“Lost Mode” button, and it asked me to enter a phone number to display on the
device. I struggled to remember my home landline phone and typed it in.

> The search was on!

To try to orient myself on the map, I walked 10 meters in one direction, but
both the little dots were bouncing around in unpredictable ways. I turned 90º
and walked another 10 meters. The dots seemed to be closer!

I kept walking, frantically searching the crowd of anonymous faces. In the movie
version of this story, the camera would be whirling around the protagonist as he
searched the crowd for a person he couldn’t identify. You know the trope.

As I was walking in the direction that made the dots closer, an airline employee
stopped me. “Sir, you can’t go past this security checkpoint.” I explained that
I had lost my phone, but that I knew it was around here somewhere. She asked if
I’d like to report it to the police, and I expressed some doubt that I had time
for that, since I was about to board a flight, but it turned out the police had
a little kiosk very close by.

I explained the situation to the cops, and they said, have you tried to make it
ping? I said yes, but that I hadn’t heard it. They said, “Do it again.” I did,
this time via the _Find Phone_ app, which I think emits a louder ping.

> WE HEARD IT!!

The three police officers jumped out of their little kiosk and said, “Again!” I
tapped it again. It was coming from the other side of the security barrier! The
cops raced through a door through the barrier not open to the public, and I
followed.

> PING!

We turned to see a man at the front of a long queue about to board a flight,
holding my phone. “Is that it?”, asked the cop. “Yes!”, I said, as I swiped it
from the man’s hand. “I called the number it said to call!”, shrugged the
British man, in English. (I did later confirm that I had a missed call on my
landline phone from my phone at that time)

I thanked the police profusely and ran off towards my gate. I grabbed my bags
and fumbled for my boarding pass and walked down the corridor towards my plane.
_So relieved!_

But of course the corridor was full of passengers waiting to get on the bus to
take us to the plane. I started up my podcast again and breathed a long sigh.

And
[tweeted about the incident](https://twitter.com/erikras/status/1041391205542711296),
of course. 🙄

<s>1041391205542711296</s>

A few minutes later, the airline employee that had just scanned my boarding pass
came down the corridor and said the police wanted to talk to me. My face must
have expressed my concern of not making the flight, and she told me that I
needn’t worry, that the bus wasn’t leaving until she told the driver it was
okay. The cop wanted my name, address, and info, so I gave in my ID card to copy
it from. He then requested the IMEI number from the phone. Weird, but I guess he
had to write it up for his report. I didn’t quite understand if they had
detained the other guy or not, but I’m sure they pulled him out of the line to
get his details as well.

I guess the guy at least made an effort to call the owner of the phone, but he
did not do the responsible thing of turning it in to the police, like I have
done on several occasions, much to my own personal inconvenience, with phones
and wallets. I’m sure he was hoping to walk/fly away with it.

---

After some serious sprinting through the Madrid airport, my iPhone, Apple Watch,
iPad, MacBook Pro, and I _barely_ caught our next flight and made it home
safely.

---

Thank you, Apple, for adding features like these to your operating systems.

And _muchas gracias_ to the Alicante Airport police for your quick action. 🙏


Technology

Posted in Technology