iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus come with anti-theft feature Activation Lock on by default

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are the first smartphones to have Activation Lock on as a default, which experts say will decrease smartphone theft rates.

To you, your new iPhone 6 looks like a gleaming sheet of technological magic - but to a thief, it looks like a shiny, worthless brick.

That’s because every iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus comes with Activation Lock - Apple's “kill switch” - on by default. Every phone, if stolen, can be wiped remotely and “bricked,” which makes it worth almost nothing to thieves, who usually want to re-sell stolen phones quickly for profit.

“The iPhone 6 is going to be a less attractive device for thieves,” said Max Szabo, spokesman for the San Francisco District Attorney’s office, which has been  pushing for universal kill switch for the past year.

In New York City, iPhone thefts and robberies dropped 29 and 19 percent in early 2014, while Samsung phones became attractive new targets. San Francisco and London also saw double-digit percent drops in iPhone thefts after an opt-in kill switch was offered.

“Am I going to go rob someone at gunpoint to sell their phone as a paperweight?” Szabo said. “Probably not.”