Apple is tearing (divorced) families apart! A judge yesterday pushed a mother to swap her 10-year-old son's iPhone for a low-end flip-phone after she "entered the father's home and took residency with the iPhone" using Apple's video conferencing software FaceTime. Apparently Fordham adjunct Annmarie McAvoy had taken to hours-long FaceTime conversations with her son while he was at his father John Hannigan's home.

McAvoy maintains her son, who lives with his father in New Jersey, is suicidal and needs to be with her and that long FaceTime chats keep him healthy. She also says they use the video-conferencing feature so she can help him with his homework. Her ex-husband, shockingly, does not agree with her assessment. His lawyer yesterday called the popular smartphone "an intrusive weapon utilized by the mother" to keep tabs on her former hubby.

Yesterday Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Sunshine ordered McAvoy to get her kid a phone that makes spying harder and urged the parents to make peace. "Life is not a cross-examination," he said. "Nor is parenthood." McAvoy wasn't buying it, though. "It just shows how out of touch this judge is," she reportedly said of the ruling outside court. "This is ridiculous."

Uhm, nobody tell McAvoy about Skype. Also, there are worse uses for an iPhone...