Back in March we heard rumors that Apple could add an important anti-theft feature to iPhones: the ability for iOS to lock everything down in the event your phone is snatched out of your hands. While I had hoped that such a feature could launch with iOS 27, that hasn't happened — but it doesn't mean anti-snatch protection is dead in the water.

Code discovered in the newly released iOS 27.2 beta reveals that Apple could still be working on this feature — as well as what signals could end up triggering it in the real world.

Google launched something similar last year, known as Theft Detection Lock, and I'm glad to see that Apple is still powering ahead with its own version. Considering how much we have on our phone, and how easy they are to steal, there's no such thing as having too much protection from thieves and other criminals.

Android's Theft Detection Lock works by detecting sudden changes in your device, using the internal sensors. So if it notices your phone suddenly jerks in one direction and takes off at speed, odds are someone has snatched your phone and started running off with it.

We assumed that Apple's version would work in a similar manner, but the uncovered code offers a little bit of detail about how iOS will register possible thefts.

Code snippets seen b y 9to5Mac shows that the theft detection is internally known as "AutoLock," though there's no guarantee that Apple will actually use that name for the public launch.

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