Undercover user guide

Information about Undercover is quite abundant on our website. This includes our 'how it works' section, the searchable FAQ, the demo movie and even this weblog. To make it even easier to get started with Undercover, we created a user guide in PDF format. It bundles everything you need to know about protecting your Mac against theft.

More recovery news

We just published two more recovery testimonials and one full-page recovery story. Head over to our recovery page for more information.

Introducing Incognito

We just released a Safari extension that protects your online privacy. It's called Incognito and it blocks companies like e.g. Google and Facebook from gathering information about you (or your browsing habits) outside the context of their own websites. The plugin started as a personal project by Albert Jorissen, one of our engineers. He was concerned about the fact that some large companies have access to a staggering amount of information about his online life. Have a look at the Incognito page for more information on this free Safari extension.

New recovery stories

We just posted five new recovery stories and customer testimonials. Head over to our recoveries page to read how Undercover helped the Florida police to catch a creepy thief / stalker, or how Undercover recovered a brand new iPad in South Carolina. We also have a detailed recovery story from Lille, France and a testimonial from Helsingborg, Sweden.

FOX News just selected Undercover as their top pick

Watch their review of three iPhone theft-recovery apps.

Undercover iPhone on iOS 4

We were close to releasing Undercover 2 for iPhone, featuring background location tracking on iOS 4. However, a few days after we started internal beta testing, Apple introduced iOS 4.1 and suddenly our internal Undercover builds stopped working. After some research, it turned out that iOS 4.1 contains a rather serious bug affecting background location tracking. Since Undercover 2 has been designed for background location tracking, there is no point in releasing this new version right now.

As soon as Apple fixes this issue - which we hope will be with the release of iOS 4.2 in November - we will submit Undercover 2 to the App Store. Although this situation is obviously beyond our control, we apologize to our iPhone customers. In the meantime, Undercover 1.6 should keep your iPhones and iPads secured.

Undercover 4.1 update

We just released Undercover 4.1. This minor update fixes a problem with Skyhook location tracking. We highly recommend all Undercover users to download and install this update. As always, the installer will automatically replace older versions. If you already are a registered Undercover user, you won't be prompted for your license key again.

Undercover is Editors' Choice in Macworld

Macworld magazine, the world's best selling Apple magazine has just reviewed Undercover 4. We are thrilled with their conclusion: "If you’re toting around an expensive MacBook on your travels, Undercover would be a wise addition to your software setup. It’ll be too late to install it when the Mac’s been stolen." They are giving Undercover the maximum of 5 stars and the prestigious Editors' Choice label. Undercover 4 is a free upgrade for all our registered users.

Undercover iPhone running in the background

Since the moment we designed Undercover for iPhone, we wanted it to run as a background application, just like our Mac version. Unfortunately, Apple does not allow background apps on the iPhone. Therefore, we are using push notifications in order to launch Undercover remotely on the stolen phone. This creative solution has worked very well in practice, but we would still prefer to have Undercover running permanently.

With the upcoming iPhone OS 4, Apple will allow developers to run their apps in the background. We will gladly oblige by adding full background-support to Undercover iPhone. We plan to release Undercover 2 for iPhone soon after the release of iPhone OS 4. As you have come to expect from us, this new release will be a free update for all existing iPhone app owners.

Undercover 4 is here

We are very proud to present Undercover 4, our newest baby. The tentpole feature in Undercover 4 is UndercoverCenter, an online system that allows you to track a lost or stolen Mac in real-time. We first introduced UndercoverCenter in November for our iPhone version, and now it's available for the Mac too.

UndercoverCenter allows you to view your Mac's location, as well as all iSight and screenshot images that are transmitted from the stolen Mac. In addition, you (or the police) can now download a zip file that contains all these images, as well as a connection log (often required by the police to obtain a subpoena) and a Google Earth file pinpointing all locations the Mac has visited since its theft.

We did not stop there though. As you know, Undercover is still the only theft-recovery app to offer the possibility to completely block a lost or stolen Mac and to display a full-screen message. This 'plan B', as we call it, can be controlled entirely from UndercoverCenter.

While we are definitely not the first to offer a web-based solution to track a stolen Mac, we are confident that UndercoverCenter is the best solution out there. We hope it sets a new standard in usability, as we designed it to feel like a native Mac app.
We made a video showing off some of the new UndercoverCenter features.

We have been working on UndercoverCenter for about a year, we hope you will be pleased with the end result. Undercover 4 is a free upgrade for all our registered users. Just download the installer from our website and run it. It will automatically remove older versions of Undercover. Simply enter your license key when prompted.

Beta-testers wanted

Undercover 4 is right around the corner. It will be the most significant Undercover-upgrade yet. As with all previous Undercover upgrades, it will be free for registered users. This applies to all of our clients, including the early-adopters who purchased Undercover 1.0 in January 2006.

To make sure Undercover 4 is issue-free from the start, we are currently looking for a few extra beta testers. We are especially - but not solely - interested in Mac OS X Tiger users.
If you are interested in helping us out, please send an email to beta@orbicule.com. Don't forget to mention your affiliation, the Mac OS X version you are using and the hardware you will be testing on.

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who signed up. We now have enough beta testers.

iPad support

In case you were wondering about our iPad commitment: Undercover iPhone will run just fine on the iPad from day one. If you already have our iPhone version, just sync your iPad with iTunes to protect your pad. No need to purchase another app. In addition, we will take iPad support a step further by developing an iPad-optimized version.

Three remarkable recovery stories

By popular demand, we are publishing three brand new recovery successes. The stories describe thefts that have been solved in 2010. All three accounts have been written by the respective owner of the Macs, giving you a real inside look of the entire recovery procedure.

The stories themselves are pretty remarkable:

• In the first story, Shanna Warmald's Mac gets stolen on a flight from the U.K. to Canada. Thefts on international flights are always difficult, as it is often unclear which police station is responsible for handling the case. Thanks to Undercover and the help of the Manchester police, she could recover the MacBook.
• The second story illustrates how Undercover helped Kenneth Koldewyn and the police to arrange a meeting with the unsuspecting thief after he put the stolen MacBook Pro on Craigslist.
• In the last story, Dave Diamond tells us how the Berkeley (CA) police could recover his stolen Mac thanks to Undercover and a little help from iPhoto.

Make sure to visit our recovery page for more Undercover successes.

Undercover recovers stolen Mac in Berkeley, CA

The MacBook of David D.'s daughter was stolen on January 9 in Berkeley, California. Thanks to Undercover, the Berkeley police station could recover the stolen Mac this past Friday. The iSight pictures obtained by Undercover were key in identifying the thief and locating the stolen goods.

We will soon post a full recovery story on our recovery page, but in the meantime you can read David's forum posts. David has been blogging about the entire recovery procedure on MacResource.com.

Undercover recovers stolen Mac in Belgium

No better way to start the new year than with a recovery story. While we have already featured many recoveries worldwide, it's great to have a recovery story in Belgium, our home country. Both the theft and the recovery took place in Mechelen, just 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the Orbicule headquarter. You can read the customer testimonial on our recovery page.

What's interesting in this story, is that the screenshots gathered by Undercover were a key factor in identifying the thief. It's important to note that Undercover is the only theft-recovery software thus far to transmit screenshots.