Man Seeks Millions from Apple After Devastating iPhone Theft

A Minnesota man named Michael Mathews is suing Apple for $5 million over the loss of 2 terabytes of data after his iPhone was stolen. The lawsuit, filed in January and brought to light by the Washington Post in April, claims that Mathews lost access to essential personal and business data, leading to the shutdown of his tech consulting firm. Central to the case is Apple's Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature, which requires a 28-digit Recovery Key to reset passwords and recover accounts. The suit argues that without this key, Mathews' account became unrecoverable, as the thief may have changed the password or enabled ADP themselves. Mathews' lawyer maintains that it is 'indefensible' for Apple to retain data they don't own and that Apple should still be able to assist in recovering the account.