When five years ago thieves broke into my sons' class locker room, they stole all android phones and cash but didn't bother to take iphones. So yes it works or at least it did back then.
This isn't really consistent with the theft statistics, e.g. 68.6% of stolen phones are iPhones[1] (in the UK where they have ~44% market share). This is presumably because of higher resale value etc., but the premise that nobody cares to steal them anymore evidently hasn't panned out.
[1] https://www.loveitcoverit.com/news/changing-world/mobile-pho...
That could be because in many situations (crimes of opportunity) thieves don’t have the luxury of time to evaluate the model of a phone before they steal it. Google needs to step their shit up.
That isn't really consistent with the statistics either: If that was happening then the theft rate should approximate the penetration, but it's still higher for iPhones, implying that the thieves actually prefer them.
That makes sense if they e.g. have a higher resale value, but only if they have a higher resale value and the thieves are choosing them on purpose as a result.
I'm sorry that the reality in a locker room of a Norwegian high school is not consistent with British statistics.
Why would being in a different country change the effectiveness of the same system? The relevance of the country is that the theft rate has to be compared with the installed base for that type of phone, which is something that does vary by country.