Husband is suing Apple after his wife found his messages to sex workers on their family iMac
A businessman is suing Apple after his messages he assumed he deleted came back to haunt him.
The unnamed British man claimed Apple's lack of transparency over deleted messages led to his wife filing for divorce, according to The Times.
He had sent messages to sex workers from his iPhone but later found these iMessages had resurfaced on the family iMac.
Despite efforts to cover his tracks, he didn't account for the tech giant's ecosystem that automatically synchronises messaging history across its linked devices.
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He reportedly failed to use Family Sharing for iCloud or set up discrete user accounts on the iMac.
The Times reported that his wife came across years' worth of messages to prostitutes when she opened up the family computer, revealing a long period of infidelity by her spouse.
'If you are told a message is deleted, you are entitled to believe it’s deleted,' the middle-aged husband explained to The Times.
'My thoughts are if I had been able to talk to her rationally and she had not had such a brutal realisation of it, I might still be married.'
He is seeking more than £5 million ($6.37 million) in compensation from Apple for the losses incurred from his divorce and legal costs.
Worse yet, he's encouraging other men in the same situation to join him in the lawsuit after hearing of others having their own difficulties with syncing messages. One story revolved around a man's messages from his iPhone appearing on an Apple TV watched by his wife.
His argument is that the iPhone manufacturer doesn't clearly inform its users that messages can still be synchronised to other devices, even if they have been deleted from one.
It would seem this is more of a human error rather than a tech error, given how syncing works. But regardless, the man hopes to confirm it as a fault on Apple's behalf, calling upon London-based law firm Rosenblatt to arrange the legal action.
'If the message had said "These messages are deleted on this device" that would have been a clue,' the husband added.
'"These messages are deleted on this device only" would have been a much clearer indicator.'
According to Apple's support pages, users can delete messages or conversations from one device and it will affect others in the process.
This occurs on devices that are similarly configured to work with Messages in iCloud.