David A. Cox: Hey, folks. I have designed today’s video
specifically for those of you out there who are parents and have kids that are
around that age where they’re starting to go out to things like parties and
concerts. Today, I’m going to teach you how to use the app known as “Find My,”
which comes with every iPhone and allows you as a parent to see not only where
your child is, but we’re also today going to go over how to set up a really simple
alert so that, for example, if they do go out to something like a party or a
concert, you can get a simple automated notification when they get home. Coming
up next on Tech Talk America.
David: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the class. I decided
to make today’s video as a response to something that happened a couple of
weeks ago. I was having dinner with a friend of mine while traveling for work,
and at this point, I was on the West Coast. We were enjoying dinner when my
phone went off. The person on the other end wasn’t someone who I normally hear
from. And because they didn’t know that I was traveling, and I was three time
zones earlier, that means that they thought it was midnight back home. And so,
usually, when you get that kind of call late at night, it’s usually not to gossip.
And so, I answered it. On the other line was a parent who had just received the
horrific news that no parent ever wants to hear: that their daughter was
missing. Now, from what I understand, she was supposed to arrive at a party or
some event and never showed up. And eventually, the friends started to panic,
they called the parents, they started to panic, and at some point, I got a
phone call. So at this point, now I’m on the phone with that parent asking me, “How
do I find my child?” Now, I don’t have tools that the FBI would have access to,
but I do know how to use an app that comes with every iPhone which has been
used in the past to locate people in this type of circumstance. There was just
one little problem: they have never turned on this one feature. Now the good
news is the child was located and everyone is fine. But after everything was
over, this person said to me, “What could I have done?” And at this point, I
would have normally said, “Go to my YouTube channel and look for a video on it,”
and then I realized I haven’t made one. And so, here we are. Now, in order to
initially set this up, it is easier if you have both your and your child’s
phones next to you. On both devices, just go into the Find My app, and from
here, on both devices, you’re going to tap on where it says “People” at the
very bottom. Now, if this is the first time you’re ever using this feature, you
will now need to tap on where it says “Start Sharing Location,” and now, you’ll
just need to type each other’s names into the search field so that you can add
each other. Now, you should see these options here, you can share your location
with the other person for either one hour, until the end of the day, or
indefinitely. I’m not going to tell what you guys how to parent, I’ll let you
make this decision; I just want you to know what your options are.
At this point, I would like to show you how to enable the feature that I mentioned in
my intro, where you can get an automatic alert when your kid gets home safe. To
do this, all you need to do, and this would be set up from the parent’s phone,
is just tap on your child’s contact in the Find My app and then scroll up a
little bit and where it says “Notifications,” tap on where it says “Add.” Now, we
could just tap on “Notify Me,” and as you can see here, we have a couple of
different options. So, for example, I can get a notification when this person
leaves a location or I can get a notification when they arrive at a location.
In the case of going to something like a party or a concert, my guess is that
you probably want the home location set so that when they arrive home, it
automatically sends out that notification. At this point, when you go to “Save
This Feature,” it is going to send an alert to the other phone just to let that
person know that this feature is being used, which is a good thing for privacy
reasons, and at that point, you are good to go. Another thing I wanted to
mention is that you should know that you can use Siri with this feature. So,
for example, you can just say, “[sound effect], where is David Jr.?” which point Siri reminds
you “There is no David Jr.,” and “Get back to
making YouTube videos.” Speaking of which, if you enjoyed this video, please be
sure to hit that little “Like” button and leave me a well-constructed comment
down below. Thank you so much for watching, everyone; this is David A. Cox with
Tech Talk America. Class dismissed.