Like a scene from a TV crime show, Victorian police have used an iPhone GPS app and a helicopter to track down a thief.

His crime? Stealing the mobile phone.

A Vic Police helicopter was used to track down an iPhone thief.

Police pulled out all stops to nab the thief who stole a woman's iPhone from a hospital in suburban Heidelberg, in Melbourne's northeast, on Tuesday afternoon.

The phone had a GPS application, so like police in a TV crime show, officers tracked it to the Greensborough area.