The subway can be a dangerous place. Muggings and robberies are quite common around the globe on commuter trains.

A new iPad, iPhone or other shiny electronic device is an attractive target for thieves, as Wall Street Journal reporter Rolfe Winkler now knows first-hand. This as reported in tuaw.com.

When the iPad was ripped from his date’s hands, Winkler instinctively chased after him, only to run into the thief's backup team on the platform.

He wound up dazed, bleeding on the ground with a broken jaw.

This is not the first major injury suffered by a victim of Apple equipment. In 2011 a Chicago woman died after an iPhone thief caused her to fall down the stairs of a commuter rail station.

There has been so much theft of Apple products that they have a new name for these thefts - "Apple picking." With used iPads and iPhones picking up as much as $400 on the secondhand market, electronics thefts are climbing.

In Washington, D.C. alone, cellphone-related robberies climbed 54 percent between 2007 and 2011, and over 26,000 thefts were reported in New York in the first 10 months of 2011.

Keep your equipment secure. If you can help it do not open them on the subways. Take precautions because these thieves are everywhere.