A man who tracked his stolen iPad is disappointed police could not obtain a search warrant to recover it.

The Napier tradesman had the iPad and about $7000 of equipment stolen from his van on Monday evening.

Using the Find My iPad feature, an application that uses GPS to track the device, he tracked it to the suburb of Onekawa. Police applied for a search warrant for a specific address but a police spokeswoman said this was declined "on the basis that there wasn't enough evidence".

"While it did "ping" in the [address] vicinity, that is only regarded as a general area and not a specific location. Often with these tracking cases we have found items not in the locations specified by the apps, but nearby," the spokeswoman said.

She could not say whether police took any further action concerning the man's complaint, such as making inquiries of the property's occupants.

The man said he found it hard to believe that the tracking information was insufficient evidence.

"The police hands were tied. They did everything they could. I suppose my point is that if we have this technology what use is it if we can't use it? I mean I understand the principles of a property owner's rights, but if the technology is saying the stolen item is likely to be at a certain address, then I'd have thought that was grounds to get a warrant."

Apple Mac service engineer Alex Jeschkus of madmacman said he had heard of several similar situations.

"It often happens in built-up urban areas. The accuracy of that feature, which uses a GPS locator built into the device, is about 5-10 metres.

"Police just can't bowl into a house unless they are certain it's the right one. Also, the GPS only works on latitude and longitude, not height, so in multi-storey buildings it's quite useless," he said.

While the application may not help with a warrant, it would prevent anyone using the device unless they had access to your email and Apple ID.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said an issuing officer must be satisfied there were reasonable grounds to suspect an offence had been committed and reasonable grounds to believe evidence was at the location.

"Sometimes a piece of evidence on its own is not strong enough to meet the reasonable grounds criteria and the issuing officer may require further evidence to reach the legal threshold needed to issue a search warrant," the spokesman said.

A criminal procedure expert, Associate Professor Bill Hodge, of Auckland University, said he found it unusual that a warrant was not granted.

"I would have thought that sort of technology was pretty well recognised and pretty well accepted as being accurate enough to meet the legal test of issuing a search warrant," Hodge said.

"I think most people . . . would think that meets the standard of issuing a warrant."

HOMING PHONE

IN 2011: Photographer Peter Meecham had his iPhone stolen at Auckland Airport. His wife was able to track it using the Find My iPhone feature."She could see it flying into Queenstown. Then it went to the Heritage Hotel. So we called the police, and they went around there," Meecham said. The guest was skiing when police arrived and shortly after the hotel contacted him to say police wanted to speak to him, the phone was turned off "and it's never been turned on since".

May, 2011: Keith Scott, who runs an Auckland car rental company, left his iPad in a car. He tracked it to Melbourne. When police arrived at the house and asked for the iPad, it was handed over by the family's 14-year-old daughter. Senior Constable Peter Tickner said police trusted the technology to the extent they would have issued a search warrant had the device not been handed over. was possible a charge still would have been laid, based on the precision the technology provided.

November, 2013: The owner of an iPad stolen from a car in Matamata was able to locate the 15-year-old thief, who had also taken the owner's wallet. The youth was arrested.

May last year: A Taranaki woman tracked a stolen iPad to an address. She called police and they found the alleged burglars.

Last month: Kate McKay of Rolleston lost her iPhone at a service station. She used a flatmate's cellphone to track the device to a nearby address. A woman who answered the door had no idea what she was talking about but a man came to the door and handed her the phone. "He said he knew it would have a GPS on it and that I would be able to find it ... I got it back, left and laughed," she said.

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 - The Dominion Post