iPhone call history shared between devices after iOS 17 Update

Call History on multiple devices problem solved after IOS 17 update:

Go to - Settings - Apple ID - iCloud - Show All - scroll down to Phone and turn off toggle - Hope this helps, It solved my problem with 3 iPhones with the same Apple ID.

AlFrued wrote:

I carry 2 iPhones with the same Apple id since ages, and I don’t want to get confused by which phone initiated personal or business calls.

Its unreasonable to maintain more than one Apple ID after all of this years.

I already reported a bug to Apple. And I came here to see if anyone else noticed/fixed this.

It's not a bug. If you carry two phones – one for work, and one for personal use – for "security" reasons, then it stands to follow that you should "firewall" your accounts and have two Apple ID accounts, as well.

The call history sharing might be new, but there is all sorts of other sharing linked to having the same Apple ID. Sharing that's been around for a long time. E.g., keychain passwords, photos, contacts, calendars, reminders, notes, and files on iCloud Drive.

iMessages are also linked to your Apple ID, whether you use "Messages in iCloud" or not.

No. It is not a problem. What’s a “problem” is that you are sharing an ID with your wife.

DON’T DO THAT.

You each need your own ID. Apple IDs should never be shared.

lobsterghost1 wrote:

You can post whatever you want. But this isn't a rant-complaint forum. This is a technical support forum where you ask a question from other users and other users try to help you with your technical question. It's been asked and it's been answered, that we, as users, cannot turn off this feature.

There's a report on reddit that if you go to Settings > FaceTime and turn off the People Can Contact You On All Devices switch, phones will stop sharing call logs.

The person who posted this was not sure why call log sharing was linked to this switch, and offhand, I can't say whether the (supposed) linkage between this and call log sharing is a bug or a feature. It could be a bug – but simply one that the people complaining in the reddit thread would happen to like.

https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/16nffeo/disable_call_log_share_on_ios_17/

Note that call log sharing between two iPhones using the same Apple ID does not seem to be an iOS-17-only thing. This thread seems to refer to it happening in a version of iOS prior to iOS 9.2.1,

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/191641/stop-synchronising-the-call-history-log-between-iphones-on-shared-apple-id

That led to this article, which makes it clear that Apple considered saving / restoring / sharing call history to be a desirable feature.

https://www.imore.com/apple-comments-icloud-call-history-sync-what-you-need-know

"'We offer call history syncing as a convenience to our customers so that they can return calls from any of their devices,' an Apple spokesperson told iMore."

View and delete the call history on your iPhone - Apple Support

"To keep call history up to date across all devices, turn on iCloud Drive."

There you have it. Who knows how Apple intended call history sharing to work before iOS 13 (though apparently it did, in some cases)? Since iOS 13, sharing call history across all of your devices has been an intended side effect of using iCloud Drive.

Log out of your ID account on your work phone. Log back in and follow the popups, don't merge and pay attention to the prompts for permissions to avoid allowing something that may sync. Go back in and deselect, separate the devices on facetime, and calls on other devices like before. Now after that there will be a prompt with a red dot on the settings app, it will tell you that certain things have not resynced, do not push resync and allow that resync, or you will have to do the above process all over again, I made that mistake So I know. To me so what if that red warning dot is on my work phone, it doesn’t bother me, may get thw odd banner telling you to resync but ignore it on the second device.

For those of you that have one account for two personal phones, I do not know how that will affect the operation of certain apps ect. I only did that process with my work phone, so its not a big deal to me if I lost some syncing on the work phone, all that matters to me is my personal phone that I paid for, and my personal phone is not loaded with my work calls.

Apple isn't listening here. This is a user to user only forum. For you and your husband however, you both should stop sharing the same Apple ID and then use Family Sharing to share apps between the two iPhones. I can see someone who has a work phone and personal phone and want them both on the same Apple ID. But you don't have that situation and sharing an Apple ID is causing this and likely won't change.

For most people, that's the way it has worked for years. I don't know why it worked differently for you. What I can tell you is that, every time Apple releases a major update, it has a tendency to break workarounds people used in order to make Apple IDs function differently than Apple intended.

Are you sharing an Apple ID with someone else?

AlFrued wrote:

Thanks for replying.

few years ago I looked for a way to stop sharing call history between same Apple ID Devices, and I learned that if I turn off contacts sync on my device it will stop sharing the call log, so I did that and it was all good since iOS 13, but now it is different

if users want to share call history, they can turn on iCloud contacts sync.

Apparently, that is not the way Apple sees it. Apple seems largely unconcerned if changes they make cause workarounds for sharing Apple IDs to stop working. Their stance has been quite clear that Apple IDs are intended to be used by one person only.

You can certainly let them know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

But, I seriously don't expect this to change.

AlFrued wrote:

Hello Idris, I strongly disagree, assuming that Apple intention is to force a user to maintain different Apple accounts to use different iPhones is defying the purpose of iCloud & the entire eco system.

That is not Apple's purpose at all and not what I've been saying. I did not say that each device should have it's own Apple ID. I said each person should have their own Apple ID.

If you are not sharing an Apple ID with another person but want the ability to maintain separate Recents, et al, I think you're out of luck. Submit your feedback to Apple.

Agreed! For 4+ years I've had two phones, 1 work and 1 personal. I used the same AppleID for one reason and one reason only. It allowed me to leave my work phone at home on the weekend and still get and respond imessages/texts from customers on my personal phone, while at the same time, keeping personal messages off my work phone. The work phone was set up to receive and reply from my work number only, and my personal phone was set up to receive messages from my work phone and my personal phone. It was completely transparent and the customer was none the wiser. Everything else was separate. If I wanted them mixed together I would have enabled "allow calls on nearby devices"! This was the perfect combination of staying reachable and keeping business and pleasure separate.

Yesterday morning I woke up to my personal phone's recent call list completely filled with numbers I didn't recognize, and my voicemail completely full of messages from customers.

So now the real problem, is that I get back to my car following a meeting and there is a missed call on both phones that I don't recognize. Was it a customer calling my work phone, or someone calling my personal phone? What phone do I call back on? I can't clean up the voicemails on either phone because it deletes them from the other phone as well. And yes, it is important that I have two phones.

I spoke to support and the first guy said that's how its always been. Then he put me onto someone else who said that it was a recent change and it was operating as intended. Being able to keep everything separate but still being able to get texts on both phones was the ONLY reason I bought a second iphone rather than an android. This is the ultimate example of a walled garden. How hard would it be to make this an opt in feature?? I can't even think of a scenario where someone would want everything getting mixed together into a single steaming pile, and not already have "allow calls on nearby devices" turned on.

Support explained that all calls are now being routed through icloud which is why it was being combined. So I asked if my health, photo's etc are also being shared between the two phones. She said no, because clearly I had sharing those to the cloud turned off. I explained that I also had phone sync turned off, but that was still being shared, and she said that was because it was going through the cloud. We went around in circles. I'm furious.

It's unfortunate you're furious, but the time it took you to write your post, could have been better served, sending your comments to Apple. You posted to the first post. This is a user to user only forum and only other users are here. Maybe what you wrote makes you feel better? But it doesn't accomplish anything because not one person here has anything to do with Apple, nor have any influence with Apple, nor can anyone here effect any change.

Read through the posts. There is a feedback link posted, which you can use to share your thoughts with Apple directly. In case you don't want to take the time to read the posts, here is the link --> Feedback - iPhone - Apple

All of those things you mentioned; notes, photos, contacts, calendars etc can be turned off. The call logs for some reason cannot be. What is the real world application of having two phones, with two separate numbers, without the inability to distinguish which one was the "target" of a call?