So what are you saying, New York Times?

Find My iPhone is an app on all the Apple products that locates your phone by GPS. In case you left it at the cleaner's or something, you can look it up and get a Google map to the location.

Obviously this also works if someone stole it. People have been going to the location of phone thieves in ever-increasing numbers, and demanding their phones back. And getting them, too.

The New York Times views this with alarm.

With smartphone theft rampant, apps like Find My iPhone offer a new option for those desperate to recover their devices, allowing victims like Ms. Maguire to act when the police will not. But the emergence of this kind of do-it-yourself justice — an unintended result of the proliferation of GPS tracking apps — has stirred worries among law enforcement officials that people are putting themselves in danger, taking disproportionate risks for the sake of an easily replaced item.

"This is a new phenomenon — it's not simply running after the person to grab the phone," said George Gascón, the San Francisco district attorney and a former police chief. "It opens up the opportunity for people to take the law into their own hands, and they can get themselves into really deep water if they go to a location where they shouldn't go."

"Some have been successful," Mr. Gascón said. "Others have gotten hurt."

Yes indeed! The world is a dangerous place! Somebody could lose an eye.

Cmdr. Andrew Smith, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, called the trend "a big concern."

"It's just a phone — it's not worth losing your life over," he said. "Let police officers take care of it. We have backup, guns, radio, jackets — all that stuff civilians don't have."

LAPD iPhone recovery team.

Well you know, that would be fine and everything if the cops actually did take care of it. But they don't. Even given the precise location of the stolen item, they won't go get it. Budget cuts, y'know. Everybody has to tighten their belts and conserve police resources to go after the Really Big Crimes, right?

Girl who actually got her phone back. Times says she must be CRAZY!

I leave it to the gentle reader to wonder why America's National News Paper of Record, the very Gray Lady herself, has seen fit to paint America as a dark and horrible place, where confronting petty thieves is so fraught with the potential for deadly violence that it is far too dangerous for common citizens to do themselves without body armor and an MRAPS vehicle for backup.

I also leave it to the gentle reader to wonder: if you knew the iPhone's owner would be showing up at your doorstep to get their phone back, possibly with some large friends, possibly armed... would you steal it in the first place?

The Phantom