The popularity of Apple's iPhone isn't quite as high as it used to be, even just a year ago when it seemed like Cupertino was unstoppable.
Though that may be the case, the theft of Apple products has become a serious, worldwide problem - especially since it's putting people's lives at risk.
In the United States alone, the theft of iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad has become a big enough problem that some city police departments have had to adapt specifically to target the problem. The New York City Police Department, in particular, made news recently for having an entire team dedicated solely to retrieving stolen Apple products. They even followed thieves into the Dominican Republic to ensure they arrested the right person.
As crazy as that sounds, it's even crazier to think that people are willing to kill others simply to nab their iPhone. But that's exactly what's happened over the last year.
A 26-year-old Korean immigrant living in NYC named Hwangbum Yang was given an iPhone as a gift with only one warning: Don't wear the white headphones at night, because he'd become a target for thieves. He didn't listen, and one night a man later identified as Dominick Davis held him up for the phone. Since Yang refused to hand the iPhone over, he was shot in the chest and killed.
"If my son never had an iPhone, he would be alive now," Hyun Sup Yang, his mother, said to the Huffington Post.
The stolen iPhone and iPad market now totals more than $30 billion a year, and it claimed even more lives than Yang.
In 2005, two teenagers were charged with murder when a fight broke out on the subway over an iPod. The result of the fight? Christopher Rose, 15 years old, was stabbed to death.
Just last July, 23-year-old Megan Boken was shot twice in the chest and neck when a robber demanded she give him her iPhone as she got into her car. She had received the phone just a month earlier for her birthday.
In November, the United States and Mexico agreed to deactivate stolen devices, but a lot more needs to be done. Simply attaching warranties and customer service plans to individuals instead of products would go a long way, but it's a step that's yet to be taken.
"Phone manufacturers, including Apple, should have addressed this problem three or four years ago," Paul Boken, Megan's father, said. "I don't think they realized someone as special as Megan can lose her life over this."
Chances are, they still don't.
