Android Device Manager now has a “call owner” feature

Have you ever found someone else’s misplaced phone? It happened to me once several years ago at a large outdoor concert. It was a nice handset but without the use of today’s recovery / tracking apps, I had no way of finding its owner. Fortunately, the phone rang as we were exiting the venue and I was able to meet back up with its rightful owner. Such a coincidence is rare and considering that most smartphones these days are (or should be) password protected, doing the right thing with a lost phone can be difficult.

Losing your phone is never fun and in the event your precious Android device lands itself in someone else’s hands, 1 of 2 things can happen. That person will either have a new phone to add to their collection, or they’ll be kind enough to return it. But even attempting to return a device to its original owner could prove difficult if the phone is locked up with some sort of password. Today, Google is taking a lot of the stress out of this entire situation by adding a few handy new feature to Android Device Manager. The web interface (and app) now has a few new options in the “lock” section. Like before, the device can be force locked with a password (something you’ll want to do to keep your all your private data/media safe) but now you’ll now see the option to add a recovery message to the lockscreen, along with a phone number the person can call to return the device. For the message, it can be anything you like. You can add death threats, or take the more cordial route (we recommend being as polite as possible).