For 15 years, Apple's Find My app didn't work in South Korea - but this man changed that

Straits Times

21-05-2025

For over a decade, Apple users in South Korea could not use its device-tracking feature. Mr Hwang Ho-chan refused to accept it and forced the company to act. PHOTO: THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
For 15 years, Apple's Find My app didn't work in South Korea - but this man changed that
SEOUL - Apple is not the type of company that explains itself. It doesn't respond to petitions. And it almost never makes country-specific feature changes, especially not for one person.
Except in South Korea, where that's exactly what happened recently.
For over 15 years, one of Apple's most critical device-tracking features, called Find My, was quietly and almost entirely disabled in South Korea.
Millions of Korean users owned iPhones, AirPods and AirTags that were, in practice, untrackable if lost or stolen. Unlike billions of users in nearly every other country, they couldn't locate their devices via GPS or track missing items with AirTags.
No one seriously questioned it. The assumption was: There must be a law -- something about Korean mapping regulations or national security. Even Apple's own support website vaguely cited 'local laws' without naming one.
But there was no such law. And in all likelihood, Apple could have activated the feature the entire time.
Now Koreans know this, because one man bothered to raise the issue.
The man who asked a 'stupid question'
In 2022, Mr Hwang Ho-chan was a regular Apple user with a long-held irritation: 'Why couldn't people in Korea use Find My like everyone else?'
He was told the usual: laws, security, geopolitics. But then he stumbled across something odd - an old post claiming someone had tracked their AirPods using Find My on Baengnyeong Island, a remote Korean territory.
If the feature was illegal under Korean law, he thought, why did it work there?
Most people would've shrugged. But Mr Hwang decided to book a trip there to investigate.
He traveled to Ulleungdo and Dokdo, two remote Korean islands in the East Sea. There, with his own devices, he tested Find My. And it worked. Find My lit up. The GPS tracking feature worked.
Mr Hwang persistently sought answers as to why the feature did not work in South Korea.
PHOTO: THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
He recalled, 'I remember standing there with my phone thinking, 'Okay, either this is illegal and Apple's violating the law out here, or the whole thing is a lie.''
Most users would have stopped there, but Mr Hwang didn't.
Campaign nobody asked for
What followed was a 19-month campaign marked by Mr Hwang's dogged persistence, overwhelming indifference and frequent humiliation.
Mr Hwang began by writing up a meticulous breakdown of his findings on Asamo, Korea's largest Apple user forum. He showed that GPS-based features like Fitness tracking and iCloud photo geotagging were already live in Korea. There was in fact no law blocking Find My from working as well.
When online posts weren't enough, he escalated. He filed formal complaints and information requests to:
The Korea Communications Commission (KCC)
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport
The Consumer Protection Agency
The Fair Trade Commission
Government replies slowly trickled in. None could cite any law prohibiting Find My. The KCC confirmed that Apple Korea itself had stated the limitation was not due to law, but 'internal policy'.
Still, Apple Korea didn't take further action. So Mr Hwang took his campaign to the streets of Seoul.
Living outside Seoul, he printed protest signs and rode hours by bus to stand, alone, outside Apple Stores in Myeongdong, Garosu-gil and Gangnam, holding large signs with QR codes linking to his findings. Most passersby ignored him.
Online, many ridiculed him.
'Why are you yelling at Apple? It's the government's fault.'
'You think they'll change anything because of you? You're no one. You have zero power.'
But Mr Hwang kept going.
Letters, petitions and doors that wouldn't open
Then Mr Hwang did something few ever have: in June 2024, he went directly to Apple Korea's headquarters in Seoul's AsemTower. He had no official appointment or legal team. He just drafted a letter demanding a clear explanation.
The front desk refused to take it.
So he waited, received a visitor card, went up to the door, and slid it under and into their office, hoping 'someone would see it'.
In July, he even launched a national petition titled 'Apple Korea, Please Explain the 'Find My' Discrimination'. Over 9,000 users signed. At the same time, he also started a KakaoTalk open chat group, which eventually saw thousands cycle through, many of them sharing stories of lost devices and missed opportunities.
Eventually, major media noticed. In late July, SBS aired a national news segment on the issue. Mr Hwang's long-dismissed campaign was now mainstream. His once-ignored protest signs appeared on national TV.
And then, in September 2024, Apple blinked.
It was never just about Find My feature
On Sept 5, 2024 , Apple issued an extremely rare, Korea-only press release: Find My would finally be rolled out in full as part of iOS 18.4, set for release in spring 2025.
On April 1, the update went live. Korea's Apple users could now do what those in the rest of the world had taken for granted since 2010: track lost AirPods or other Apple devices.
Within days, Mr Hwang's open KakaoTalk chat filled with screenshots of recovered items.
With AirTags — Apple's coin-sized trackers that use nearby devices to relay their location — finally working in Korea, users were able to find lost backpacks, wallets and AirPods for the first time, along with some long-overdue peace of mind.
Apple never acknowledged Mr Hwang. It never admitted it was at fault or explained the original restriction. But it didn't matter. Now the feature was available.
Although no offical data is available, Mr Hwang believes South Korea has over 10 million Apple users, yet for 15 years, no one — not the media, influencers or lawmakers—questioned why a basic feature was missing. Everyone assumed someone else had checked.
One person finally did.
'For me, this wasn't just about the feature alone,' he said. 'It was about how easy it is for misinformation to settle into something permanent. People thought Apple had a good reason. But no one could say what it was.'
Looking back, what surprises him most is not how long it took to get the service working here, but how no one else had attempted to do so. He's still amazed it worked.
'I had no power. I didn't have money or a title. I was unemployed when I started. But I kept thinking, If this isn't right, someone should fix it. And eventually, that someone had to be me.' THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
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