A widely hinted and rumored feature of OS X Lion has finally come to fruition with the newly released Developer Preview. Developers have successfully enabled 'Find My Mac' on the new build. The new feature is built right in to Mail, Contacts and Calendar within System Preferences and promises many of the same features as the similar service for iOS devices.
Just as Find My iPhone (which also works for iPad and iPod Touch) became free with release of iOS 4.2, OS X Lion will offer the functionality for your Mac for free as well. All one needs to do is enable it as part of their iCloud account. Find My Mac adds in the ability to allow for guest access to a lost or stolen Mac, so that the guest may connect to the internet through Safari in order to hopefully return it to the rightful owner. An enabled Mac can also be locked or wiped remotely, just as with the iOS version. Obviously, like the iPod Touch and Wi-Fi iPad models, the Find My Mac functionality will only do you any good if your lost or stolen Mac connects to the internet. Once locked, the Mac displays a grey screen with an Apple logo, with four spaces for the user to enter a pre-defined passcode. Again, this is the same thing we know and love from the iOS version.
One thing I would have liked to see however, is the ability to report a Mac as 'stolen.' This would ideally make the Mac send a signal, and maybe an accompanying email (and/or a fancy new iOS 5 notification) to other devices connected to your iCloud account. That way, users wouldn't have to continually check online or via an app to discover the location of their missing Mac. Still, it's a great feature, and will surely allow for some feel-good Mac finding stories once Lion drops next month.
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