13 April 2010

Undercover 4 is here

We are very proud to present Undercover 4, our newest baby. The tentpole feature in Undercover 4 is UndercoverCenter, an online system that allows you to track a lost or stolen Mac in real-time. We first introduced UndercoverCenter in November for our iPhone version, and now it's available for the Mac too.

UndercoverCenter allows you to view your Mac's location, as well as all iSight and screenshot images that are transmitted from the stolen Mac. In addition, you (or the police) can now download a zip file that contains all these images, as well as a connection log (often required by the police to obtain a subpoena) and a Google Earth file pinpointing all locations the Mac has visited since its theft.

We did not stop there though. As you know, Undercover is still the only theft-recovery app to offer the possibility to completely block a lost or stolen Mac and to display a full-screen message. This 'plan B', as we call it, can be controlled entirely from UndercoverCenter.

While we are definitely not the first to offer a web-based solution to track a stolen Mac, we are confident that UndercoverCenter is the best solution out there. We hope it sets a new standard in usability, as we designed it to feel like a native Mac app.
We made a video showing off some of the new UndercoverCenter features.

We have been working on UndercoverCenter for about a year, we hope you will be pleased with the end result. Undercover 4 is a free upgrade for all our registered users. Just download the installer from our website and run it. It will automatically remove older versions of Undercover. Simply enter your license key when prompted.

7 comments:

Eugene Gordin said...

Good job guys! Very glad that this is a free upgrade for existing users - that's why I tell people about you guys - keep up the good work.

mhl12 said...

Hi, thanks a ton for this free update. I installed it yesterday and I think it said that I should receive a confirmation email, but I accidentally clicked okay before reading the whole message.

I still haven't received any email, so I'm wondering how long I should wait, if at all. Thanks!

Peter Schols said...

Please contact support@orbicule.com with any questions.

Anonymous said...

While I am very interested in this product (I am a programming and database student) , your Plan B under the How It Works page stopped me from purchasing. I think if the screen goes blank the thief will probably reinstall (or a find a way to reinstall) the OS, and you lose everything.

Peter Schols said...

Please note that plan B is entirely optional. It needs activation only in very few cases, it's kind of a last resort. When activating Undercover, plan B will not be activated automatically, you have to do it yourself. If you don't like plan B, simply leave Undercover in de default stealth mode.

Anonymous said...

I just installed the new version and UndercoverCentral seems great (super useful!), but it is a little scary that the 'Locate if not stolen' option is turned on by default, and your location is uploaded without asking the first time you use it. Also, if you turn it off and delete the location, it asks you to turn it back on! Someone could easily think turning it on is necessary for protection.

Thierry said...

To Anonymous about Plan B. You can use plan B safely if you create a Firmware password on your mac. This password will protect anybody from formatting your harddrive and reinstalling the OS. To really get rid of undercover somebody will have to remove the hard drive physically and replace it by a new one. Most thief do not go to that extend.
From Apple on firmware password: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1352