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Notable points for consumers are that neither iMessages in iCloud nor AirPlay 2 are in the release, despite being tested in 11.3 betas (and earlier 11.x betas).

Notable points for consumers are that neither iMessages in iCloud nor AirPlay 2 are in the release, despite being tested in 11.3 betas (and earlier 11.x betas). I'm not sure what to make of this. On one hand, I'm glad Apple is taking their time to ensure these features are fully stable before releasing; on the other, I wish they were not "pre-announced" as early as they were. To me, iMessage in iCloud seems to be as risky as the APFS rollout, if not more. I'm guessing that is going to be a one-way conversion, and any issues are going to be very apparent to users. Apple did lots of "test" conversions for APFS over betas before a final release (which is why some updates took so long). Does anyone have any insight into what a rollout of such a feature looks like? Most iMessage databases are multiple GB, and iMessage has millions of users.

crocbuzz 9y ago
Oh gosh, delayed again? I was really looking forward to iMessages being backed up iCloud.
- oflannabhra 9y ago
  I guess there is still the potential to roll it out with a server side trigger, as Apple did with Apple Pay Cash. But, I would imagine it would be in the release notes if that were the case, and it isn't.
- scarface74 9y ago
  IMessages are backed up as part of the normal device back up. They just aren't synced to other devices with the canonically source being iCloud.
Humdeee 9y ago
Even the APFS final release still had a scaled roll-out I believe for safety.
baddox 9y ago
Does anyone know what this feature actually entails? iMessage on my Macs has always synced for at least a year, including SMS (non-iMessage) messages sent from my phone.
- eric_h 9y ago
  Personally, every device I have (aside from my phone) has a different subset of messages on it. When they're on and near each other, they all get the same messages, but they definitely don't get everything all the time when off/out of range of my phone. I suspect that the current setup is a best effort sync, while the full message backup exists within the iPhone backup. iCloud iMessages would, I think, make that backup/storage a first class entity, separate from the phone's backup.
  - baddox 9y ago
    Oh yeah, maybe the syncing only happens from phone to Mac right now. I've never noticed or tested that, since my phone is basically always with me when I'm on my computer. I've had occasional issues with my Mac having out of order or missing messages, particularly when powering on my Mac after lengthy downtime, but it seems to resolve itself in a few minutes.
    - eric_h 9y ago
      I have a desktop at the office, laptop and iPad at home and it's pretty amusing the way the messages between them do and don't overlap. SMS messages are the worst offender by far, but even the iMessages don't always end up on every device. I've never noticed out of order messages on any device, even though it seems to be a pretty prevalent problem amongst the comments here.
- oflannabhra 9y ago
  From a user perspective, probably the biggest aspect of this is freeing up local storage. My iMessage database is 10 GB, my wife's is 9. That is not an issue for me, but there are still lots of 16 GB devices in active use.

crocbuzz 9y ago

Oh gosh, delayed again? I was really looking forward to iMessages being backed up iCloud.

oflannabhra 9y ago
I guess there is still the potential to roll it out with a server side trigger, as Apple did with Apple Pay Cash. But, I would imagine it would be in the release notes if that were the case, and it isn't.
scarface74 9y ago
IMessages are backed up as part of the normal device back up. They just aren't synced to other devices with the canonically source being iCloud.

Humdeee 9y ago

Even the APFS final release still had a scaled roll-out I believe for safety.

baddox 9y ago

Does anyone know what this feature actually entails? iMessage on my Macs has always synced for at least a year, including SMS (non-iMessage) messages sent from my phone.

eric_h 9y ago
Personally, every device I have (aside from my phone) has a different subset of messages on it. When they're on and near each other, they all get the same messages, but they definitely don't get everything all the time when off/out of range of my phone. I suspect that the current setup is a best effort sync, while the full message backup exists within the iPhone backup. iCloud iMessages would, I think, make that backup/storage a first class entity, separate from the phone's backup.
- baddox 9y ago
  Oh yeah, maybe the syncing only happens from phone to Mac right now. I've never noticed or tested that, since my phone is basically always with me when I'm on my computer. I've had occasional issues with my Mac having out of order or missing messages, particularly when powering on my Mac after lengthy downtime, but it seems to resolve itself in a few minutes.
  - eric_h 9y ago
    I have a desktop at the office, laptop and iPad at home and it's pretty amusing the way the messages between them do and don't overlap. SMS messages are the worst offender by far, but even the iMessages don't always end up on every device. I've never noticed out of order messages on any device, even though it seems to be a pretty prevalent problem amongst the comments here.
oflannabhra 9y ago
From a user perspective, probably the biggest aspect of this is freeing up local storage. My iMessage database is 10 GB, my wife's is 9. That is not an issue for me, but there are still lots of 16 GB devices in active use.