The Urban Institute has released a report making a bold assertion that there is a direct co-relation between iPods and the recent jump of violent crimes in the United States. Now, as much as we would like to agree with the Urban Institute we found several flaws in their argument that we could not let pass, the primary on being that iPods are singled out.

In the report, it is stated that FBI statistics have shown an increase in violent crime from 2005-2006, this is true. Homicides and robberies are way up from the previous year, with a stronger focus on robberies. However they assert that the rise of theft is related to the sales of iPods and other removable media devices. This is difficult to prove as the national crime databases classify iPods and other media devices as “merchandise” so there is no data collected regarding specific models. In the report the quote “anecdotal evidence” however this comprises existing stories from the media, which at many times target iPods as they are the “Coke” of music players and so Apple is low hanging fruit. iPods may be part of the equation, but I think that the Urban Institute puts a little too much blame on iPods and is missing the forest for the trees.

The rapid sales of iPods and removable media devices are not an isolated pheonmena, but a tip of the iceberg reflecting a shift in our society. It does not take much research to see that our society is becoming more mobile, laptops outsell desktop systems, mobile phones and PDAs are computers themselves, not to mention our reliance on portable GPS systems, flash drives, portable game consoles such as the Sony PSP and the list goes on. Every day it seems we hear about another laptop theft, and our friends at JustStolen.net have been telling us about law enforcement seeing a rising occurence of GPS devices being stolen from cars.

One could make a case that theft is actually the oldest profession; it will not go away and will evolve with technology. To fight the theft of mobile devices, we need to change our approach, the old model will no longer work in theft prevention. This is the prime reason that GadgetTrak was created, as an innovative way to utilize technology to protect our customers’ devices.

In the Brooklyn Paper there is a description of an iPod mugging where the victim tried to fight a mugger off. We of all people know that iPods are valuable items to their owners, however no electronic device is worth your life (even an iPhone). We suggest that if you are ever in a situation where it comes to an issue of personal safety in a situation such as this you just give your device the the perpetrator.

These types of situations show another angle to GadgetTrak’s technology. Not only does GadgetTrak help recover devices, but also has the potential to help solve violent crimes such as muggings, as well as larger property crimes in instances where a gadget protected by GadgetTrak is stolen along with a lot of other items. An interesting statistic I read regarding a company which sells PC theft software, is that 5% of the time when police go in to a location to recover a stolen laptop, they uncover more crimes being commited, from illegal drugs, fencing operations and other larger crimes.

It is good to know that GadgetTrak can help keep people safe by providing peace-of-mind that if they are in a violent situation, if they just give up their device without any struggle there is a good chance they will get it back and there is no need to resist. If the GadgetTrak agent is triggered and information is collected this can be given to the police who can not only recover your device, but also get a mugger (iMugger?) off the streets.

Of course I am not going to say that Apple promotes iPod theft, however I can make a case that they do profit from it. Because odds are that once you iPod is stolen you are going to buy another one.

Witnesses to the Crime

Those who own iPods invariably also have iTunes installed on their computers, which also connects to the iTunes store. When you connect to the iTunes store that the serial number of your iPod is sent to Apple and that if your iPod were stolen Apple could do something about it, by identifying the perpetrator. But is this really a business that they want to get into?

Why Apple Doesn’t Save the Day?

So why is it that Apple does not assist their customers when their iPods are stolen? The short answer is that it would be a privacy nightmare for Apple to track customers in this way as they have a great deal of personally identifiable information available to them which they can tie to a device.  If Apple were to start helping folks recover stolen iPods by tracking devices down by their serial numbers it would bring attention to the very fact that THEY ARE TRACKING YOU. This would be bad PR and the benefit of helping a handful of customers who have had their iPods stolen would not be worth the added logistical, legal and PR issues that would arise if they started doing this and it would seriously affect the bottom line.

iPod Theft Makes Repeat Customers

If you are an honest Joe, who saved hard to buy your iPod odds are you also purchase music through iTunes legally. The music purchased on iTunes by default are in a proprietary format that only Apple music players can play, unless you illegally convert the files to another format (or you can purchase the rights to download in a different format which costs more money).

Choose A New Player: As Long As It Is An iPod

If your iPod is stolen, what are your options if you want to load your library of legally purchased music onto another player. Well you have many choices as long as it is an iPod, say an iPod Nano, iPod video, iPod Shuffle and the friendly folks at Apple even let you choose your color, even a cute red one that just screams “I am a bright red iPod, please steal me”.