Why Find my iPhone application is built in such useless way?

Question

Today I lost my iPhone 3GS And I was trying to locate it using "Find My iPhone" app. But as we know, it rarely helps!

I was wondering why is it built in this way and why they didn't use a MAC address based search instead, so that even if someone removes your account and formats everything still you can find it whenever the Phone connects to the internet using the unique MAC address.

I know this doesn't help me find my iPhone but at least it could give some ideas for future versions of this type of applications.

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EDIT

And furthermore, why they don't add this function to the iOS core instead of running it as an app which can easily be disabled.

Answer 1

Apple realized they could make Find My iPhone work better and between hardware that supports iOS 7 and the new OS - activation lock does precisely what I think you ask.

• http://support.apple.com/kb/TI174

The tracking doesn't require any app to be installed for iOS 7 or earlier OS and is baked into the settings app. The app only assists you in tracking from a remote device if you don't want to use the iCloud web interface for tracking and wiping.