If you've misplaced your iPhone or iPad, you might want to verify that you can locate it by following the instructions below -- which have been graciously provided by Small Dog Electronics. Even if you haven't lost it, you can still do a test. I just confirmed that I could find my iPhone remotely, even though it is sitting by my side. And every time I logged into iCloud my iPhone would 'ding' with a message that someone was logging into my iCloud account.
Jim Hamm
You can use Find My iPhone to find your device, take additional actions to help you recover it, and keep your information safe.
Sign in to icloud.com/find on a Mac or PC, or use the Find My iPhone app on another iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
Find your device. Open Find My iPhone, and select a device to view its location on a map. If the device is nearby, you can have it play a sound to help you or someone nearby find it.
Turn on Lost Mode. Using Lost Mode, you can remotely lock your device with a passcode, display a custom message with your phone number on your missing device’s Lock screen, and keep track of your device’s location. If you added credit, debit, or prepaid cards to Apple Pay, the ability to make payments using Apple Pay on the device is suspended when you put your device in Lost Mode.
Erase your device. To prevent anyone else from accessing the data on your missing device, you can erase it remotely. When you erase your device, all of your information (including credit, debit, or prepaid cards for Apple Pay) is deleted from the device, and you won’t be able to find it using Find My iPhone. After you erase a device, you can’t track it. If you remove the device from your account after you erase it, Activation Lock will be turned off. This allows another person to turn on and use your device. This really works, I have tested it!
Find My iPhone is one of the handiest safety features of Apple devices. While some other cell phones have a similar feature, none are as complete or as useful as Apple’s Find My iPhone!