“The Activation Lock Apple added to iOS 7′s ‘Find My Phone’ feature functions as a kill switch; once you enable it, your phone is off-limits to anybody without your iCloud password, even if they wipe and reset the phone,” Rob Pegoraro reports for USA Today. “Its resale value should fall to zero.”

“And with 87% of iOS devices running that version of Apple’s mobile operating system, the odds of Activation Lock securing an iDevice are high,” Pegoraro reports. “So why do the numbers of iPhone thefts remain so high?”

“It’s so easy to snatch a phone that thieves don’t mind the chance that they’ll be stuck with a bricked device,” Pegoraro reports. “There’s still a decent chance that a stolen iPhone won’t run iOS 7 or won’t have Find My Phone enabled… An inoperative iPhone can still retain some resale value, even if only for parts.”

“But having Activation Lock enabled â€" and promptly reporting a stolen iPhone to your wireless carrier and the police â€" can still help. Doing nothing does not,” Pegoraro reports. “Android users don’t have an equivalent of Apple’s kill-switch defense, aside from a handful of Samsung phones that can run Absolute Software’s LoJack app [which costs US$39.99 per year] [1] .”

Read more in the full article here [2] .