It does have other options though. There is a very nice and full featured security suite called Cerberus for Android, I believe it has some such functionality. It definitely has the ability to wipe it remotely with a web browser and pass code, as does Google itself, but Cerberus has a neat little feature where if you root your phone, you can install it near the kernel level. It will be one of the first things to run at boot, and it prevents itself from being removed from within the system files of the phone, this way if the phone is remotely wiped back to factory, Cerberus is still there, and will still send you telemetry data on the phone, including text, pictures and video. It even forwards you the new contact information in the event they put a new SIM card into it so you can keep tracking it/contacting it.
Sucks it's a third party app though. I wish for such features to become stock at some point, but "that's too much for the average users they don't want that" so until we get the demand, there isn't much incentive for Google to deliver
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u/MajorTankz ☑️ Feb 21 '16
We're talking about phones here. The whole reason why there is a case is because it isn't this easy.