With the rising costs of smartphones today, it has become increasingly more important to have a way to find your phone if it is misplaced or stolen. Here are a few free apps that you can download to your phone and help you recover one of your most prized possessions.

IPHONE

Find My IPhone – You can download the free Find my IPhone application in the Apple IStore. After you download the app onto your phone, you can locate your IPhone from any other iOS device. This means you can find your phone on any other Apple I-Device. That includes other IPhones, IPads, IPod Touches or Macs. Simply log into any other the other devices and sign in with your Apple ID and a map will be displayed that will tell you the location of your lost IPhone. There are additional features that allow you to remotely lock your phone and/or display a message on the screen.
(You can also install this app on your IPad as well).

Android Phones

Where’s My Droid – You can download the free Where’s My Droid app directly from the Android Market. If you lose your phone and it’s in silent mode, you can text a password to the phone and it will start ringing or vibrate to help you locate it. In addition, you can find your phone using GPS location.

Locate My Droid – You can download this free from the Android Market. With this app, you can recover your lost or stolen Android phone within 2 minutes. Your phone’s location can also be shown on a map and narrowed down to the exact street address.

Losing your smartphone can be a scary thing. Because of that, I strongly recommend that you download one of the above appications on your phone immediately. However if you don't get a chance to download the other apps onto your smartphone, there is always Plan B.

Plan B – This is my favorite lost phone Android application because it can be remotely downloaded to your phone. In the event you are unable to locate your phone and you haven’t already downloaded Plan B, head over to the Android Market and install Plan B. Plan B will automatically send your phone’s location to your Gmail address. You can also text, “locate” to your phone from another phone and have the results texted back to you.