Have you ever lost a smartphone? By chance, do you live in Atlanta? Lookout, a company that makes mobile phone security software, reported that its users misplaced 50.3 million dollars worth of smartphones in A-Town.
The city ranks first on its top ten list, which includes Philadelphia, Oakland, Houston and New York. It seems that the absentminded mostly hug the coast.
Each city has its own kind of carelessness. In New York City, you might want to retrace your steps to the last coffee shop or fast food restaurant. In Philly, head for the auto shop or pizza parlor. Chicagoans also flake out in coffee shops, as well as drug stores and churches. And be extra vigilant at night and at any kind of festivals, when the most phones go missing somewhere in the world.
Lookout also provides data on cities outside the US, especially in Europe.
What will it cost you? In NYC, budget for a new phone every year, as that's the average time to lose one. Chicagoans hold out for three years - by which time you may have bought a new model, anyway.
The company recently launched a website called Mobile Lost and Found where you can see in realtime where and when phones disappear.
That's all true, at least, for owners of iPhone and Android phones — the two types for which Lookout makes software. Of course iPhones (as well as iPads and iPods) also have a finder app built right into the iOS operating system. So Lookout's data may present only part of the story.
And all these people are the lucky ones, since Lookout pulled the stats from lost phones it was able to recover using its location software.
In the U.S., these are the cities where the odds are least in your favor, and how much worth of cellphone's lookout customers (temporarily) lost.
Atlanta $50.6 Million
Fort Worth $48.5 Million
Philadelphia $48M
Long Beach, CA $47.7M
Oakland $45.8 Million
Los Angeles $42.2 Million
Chicago $40 Million
Houston $39 Million
New York $35 Million
Tampa $33 Million