Find my iPhone can work on iPhone 3 and 3GS too

Posted on March 24, 2011

I know, it’s probably not something that we should talk about too loudly lest Apple get upset, but it’s true, you can use the “Find my iPhone” feature that apple recently made free for the iPhone 4 with your iPhone 3 and 3GS, but there’s a trick to it: you’ll need a willing friend who does have an iPhone 4 for you to borrow.

Enabling Find my iPhone on the iPhone 3 or 3GS

The trick is this: iOS4.2 isn’t what makes it work, iOS4.2 simply allows your apple account to be marked with a flag that says “yeah, allow them to use the free feature”, once your account has been activated on a 4.2 device you can actually add it to any device!

So simply, all you need to do is:

1. find a friend with an iPhone 4
2. borrow it
3. go into settings, mail accounts, mobile me and then add a new account using your iTunes username and password*, much as in the apple instructions
4. let it authorise, accept any T&Cs, and turn on find my iPhone
5. save it all, go back in and then delete your account from your friend’s iPhone
6. Now add the account to your non-4 iPhone in exactly the same way, and it’ll work!

*if your friend’s phone already has a mobile me account you’ll need to delete it first, double-check with them but they can just add it right back in once you’re done so it shouldn’t be a huge issue