I had my iPhone stolen a few days ago so naturally I tried to do a remote erase. However, the device has been offline since it got stolen so the erase is still being requested. I'm thinking of changing the password for my Apple ID but I'm worried that if I change my password, the stolen iPhone will become disassociated with my Apple ID (since the password doesn't match now). Will this happen? Or will the iPhone still receive the erase request once it comes online despite the password stored on the phone being an old password?
Thanks
Best Answer
Changing your AppleID password is an excellent idea, but you want to place your iPhone into LOST MODE rather than to erase it: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201472
Here is an excellent article on choosing a password, from Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~help/security/choosing_passwords.html
I have read quite a few articles concerning stolen iPhones. Many experienced thieves start by putting the iPhone into Recovery Mode, which erases all the data, and makes it virtually impossible to locate by you or the authorities. Once in Recovery Mode, the only way to reload iOS (and reactivate the phone) is with the correct AppleID and password of the registered owner (you).
Odds are you'll never see your iPhone again, and some schmuck will buy it, only to discover it's unusable.