Metro

iPhone crime? iHave bigger worries: mayor

A surge in iPhone thefts isn’t ringing alarm bells with Mayor Bloomberg.

If that’s the city’s biggest concern on the crime front, the Big Apple is in pretty good shape, he insisted yesterday at his budget presentation attended by Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

“If the worst problem we have is iPhone stealing . . .” the mayor began, before turning to Kelly and sarcastically adding, “Ray, you’d better get on this iPhone right away. This is serious!”

Thefts of the popular mobile device are reportedly up 44 percent this year, to 1,196 — but the mayor blamed some of that on iPhone owners themselves.

“We do live in a world where people carry around, treat cavalierly, pieces of technology that’s useful to somebody if they steal them,” he said. “And they’re easy to steal.”

He suggested looking at murder and auto-theft rates as better measures of safety in the city.

“Auto theft, because people always call their insurance company, and murder, because it’s very hard to hide a body,” quipped the billionaire mayor, who’s seldom without his iPad and never without his security detail.

Sen. Charles Schumer last week revealed a deal with carriers to disable smartphones as soon as they go missing. Last year, 42 percent of all property crimes reported here involved such devices.