A man in England is suing Apple for £5 million after his wife discovered his infidelity through messages synced to their family iMac.
The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, had been using iMessage to solicit sex workers. Despite deleting the texts from his iPhone, the messages remained visible on the iMac, revealing his activities to his wife. She subsequently filed for divorce, which has cost him over £5 million.
The man’s lawsuit argues that Apple failed to make it clear that deleting messages on one device does not remove them from all devices synced to the same Apple ID.
He claims the abrupt discovery of his actions by his wife was extremely harsh and believes a more rational discussion could have saved their marriage.
For those who wish to avoid similar issues, it’s recommended to either not sync messages across devices or to enable iCloud for Messages, which ensures that deleted messages are removed from all synced devices.
This can be done via Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Show All > Messages in iCloud > Use on This iPhone, but it will use iCloud storage space beyond the free 5GB offered by Apple.
