Send a Message to an iPhone, iPad, or Mac from iCloud

Nov 18, 2011 - 6 Comments

A message from iCloud

With iCloud and the “Find My iPhone” feature, you can send messages to your remote Apple gear. These come through in the form of a pop-up window in Mac OS X and a notification in iOS 5, and while there’s a variety of uses for this, it’s also a fun way to send a quick message to someone using your hardware, be it a loved one or a thief. You can also choose to play a pinging sound with the notification, it will repeatedly play at full volume until someone acknowledges the notification, guaranteeing that it can’t be ignored.

You’ll need iCloud enabled and have iOS 5+ on the iPad or iPhone, and OS X 10.7.2+ on the Mac, and all hardware must be sharing the same iCloud ID.

Send a Message to Your Apple Hardware from iCloud

We’re going to send a message to a MacBook Air for the purpose of this walkthrough, but it’s identical on an iPad, iPhone, iPod touch too:

  • Go to iCloud.com and login
  • Click on the “Find My iPhone” button – it will say iPhone even if you want to send a message to a Mac, iPad, or iPod
  • Send a message to iPhone, iPad, or Mac from iCloud

  • A list of compatible devices will load in the left menu titled “My Devices” and the location of the device will appear on a map
  • Click on the blue “i” button to bring up a the “Find My Mac” (or iPhone/iPad) control panel for that machine, select the “Play Sound or Send Message” button
  • Send message to a Mac from iCloud

  • Type your message and click on “Send” , keep the ON switch for “Play Sound” if you want the loud pinging sound to repeat until the notification is acknowledged
  • Sending a message from iCloud

Messages are delivered practically instantaneous. From the users end they look like the pop-up at the top of the screen, and the sender will get a confirmation in the email that is attached to their iCloud account:

iCloud message confirmation email

Bonus points if you send a nice message to a significant other or loved one, or if you gently nudge your iPad hogging roommate who is addicted to Temple Run.

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Posted by: Paul Horowitz in iPad, iPhone, Mac OS, Tips & Tricks

6 Comments

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  1. […] is a free download on the iOS App Store, and lets you locate the iOS devices or Macs on a map, send messages and pings to the devices, and even remotely wipe them of their […]

  2. Bradley says:

    Can you set Find My iPhone up on a Windows as well?

    • Nico Droster says:

      with windows, you can log into icloud.com and send messages to apple devices… but, with windows you may not register your computer as a device for it to recieve any notifications

  3. biko says:

    Cool I will use this on my girlfriends birthday soon

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