To the snatch-and-grab robbers who prowl the city’s streets and subways, the iPhone is an attractive target: ubiquitous, expensive and easily recognizable from across the street.

Additionally, the phones’ rightful owners are often oblivious to their surroundings as they stare at their screens or press them to their ears. But a fairly typical iPhone theft on Monday in southern Queens involved an unusual reversal of roles: it was the man that the police believe to be the thief who was ambushed.

The victim of the iPhone theft, a 31-year-old woman, had apparently considered it likely that her iPhone would someday be stolen. So she downloaded an application to her iPhone that instructs the phone to take a picture and e-mail it to her if an incorrect password is used to unlock the iPhone’s home screen, the police said.

That is precisely what happened, the police said, after a man bumped into her on Liberty Avenue and took her iPhone 4 from her front right pocket. The photo, which the woman later received via e-mail, shows a young man with closely cropped hair and an earring in his left ear in a bare room, with what appears to be a skylight. The woman passed the photo on to the Police Department, which distributed the photo widely to try to identify the man.

The app is available online under the name iGotYa, but is not for sale through iTunes.

(Source: NY Times)