You can even see the precise location of each family member - or their phones, at least - on a private family map. Dad can receive an automatic notification when the kids are at school or when mom leaves work. To get some answers, we called Alex Haro, president of Life360, an app that lets family members keep track of each other using phone location data. (Police ransacked the house but found nothing.) Not everyone buys the couple's explanation - the app got it wrong - and the cops once held them for questioning when the smartphone of a missing girl was tracked to their house. They understand how aggravating it is have your phone stolen, but it's even more aggravating to be accused of stealing it, again and again. They're 20-something professionals whose house address repeatedly and inexplicably shows up on phone locator apps like Apple's Find My iPhone. Who will it be this time: a rowdy group of teenagers, a ticked-off dude with tattoos or the cops? They all come to this nondescript house in the suburbs of Atlanta looking for one thing - their stolen smartphones. They approach the door apprehensively, even a little afraid.

There's a hard knock at the door, enough to wake Christina Lee and Michael Saba from a dead sleep. Sometimes it happens in the middle of the night. App developers love cellular data because it sucks up less battery life than GPS or WiFi tracking, but its also the least accurate.

Find my phone