574

Man sues Apple for accidentally exposing his infidelity (appleinsider.com)

submitted 4 months ago by Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

144 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A British man is ridiculously attempting to sue Apple following a divorce, caused by his wife finding messages to a prostitute he deleted from his iPhone that were still accessible on an iMac.

In the last years of his marriage, a man referred to as "Richard" started to use the services of prostitutes, without his wife's knowledge. To try and keep the communications secret, he used iMessages on his iPhone, but then deleted the messages.

Despite being careful on his iPhone to cover his tracks, he didn't count on Apple's ecosystem automatically synchronizing his messaging history with the family iMac. Apparently, he wasn't careful enough to use Family Sharing for iCloud, or discrete user accounts on the Mac.

The Times reports the wife saw the message when she opened iMessage on the iMac. She also saw years of messages to prostitutes, revealing a long period of infidelity by her husband.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] jordanlund@lemmy.world 102 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

If I have multiple devices synced, and I delete something from one of them, it's not unreasonable to think it should be deleted from all of them.

For example, a shared calendar item on my phone, tablet and laptop. If I delete it on one, it should be deleted from all of them.

If Apple synced the messages, but not the delete operation, yeah... that's a problem.

But it's also on the guy for setting up/not disabling sharing in the first place.

[-] locuester@lemmy.zip 7 points 4 months ago

It depends on how you look at these things. Traditional, fat-client POP3 email was not syncing, it was just downloading from the server. In such a case, I would not expect it to be syncing.

In this particular case, I wouldn’t expect a sync at all. These are messages received on, and managed on, distinct devices.

That said, I did get a MacBook last month and have learned that these things synchronize. Which is cool but I didn’t expect that. Still wouldn’t expect it on deletes.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 8 points 4 months ago

Here's how it's advertised:

If someone sends a message to your email address or phone number using iMessage, you receive the message on all your Apple devices that are set up to receive messages sent to that email address or phone number. When you view an iMessage conversation, you see all messages sent from any device, so you can keep in touch with others wherever you are.

The article says nothing about deleted messages, but it does imply that what you see on one device is expected to match what you see on another. So it's reasonable to think that deleting on one device will delete on another.

this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2024

574 points (97.0% liked)

Technology

59242 readers

3466 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS