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I love how everyone talks about "deleted pictures". Those pictures were never deleted in the first place and just got marked as "don't show to user anymore". T

I love how everyone talks about "deleted pictures". Those pictures were never deleted in the first place and just got marked as "don't show to user anymore". That's all there is to it. Apple, like all the other cloud companies does not delete anything.

noahtallen 2y ago
I don’t think so. Firstly, there’s this: https://old.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/1cwgljj/regarding_the_ios_175_photo_glitch/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/1cwgljj/regarding_the_... Secondly, there’s the iOS changelog that mentions corrupted files re-appearing. Finally, if you have iCloud Photos turned off (as many do), nothing is getting saved to the cloud, and there’s no benefit to Apple keeping it on device. You’re suggesting that no picture in the photos app is ever truly deleted, and implying that Apple uses this for some nefarious purpose. But there’s no evidence for that.
- Grimeton 2y ago
  The whole article on Reddit is a farce and contradicts itself, and don't insinuate things that haven't been said.
fckgw 2y ago
This issue had nothing to do with iCloud.
NoPicklez 2y ago
Why do you "love how", the reason people say deleted, was because they deleted them and expected them to be gone and out of sight. It doesn't matter what the technical reason or method is used for 'deleting' them. It has been the case for decades that when you delete files those files aren't necessarily gone, but they are out of view from the average prying eye.
- Grimeton 2y ago
  And that is something you and I know but that the broader public neither knows nor really understands. And looking at what is said in this article and in other articles regarding this issue on the net it seems not even these people understand it.
  - NoPicklez 2y ago
    So if that's the case then how can you make the claim that you have if people don't understand what has gone wrong. If Apple implements a function to delete a photo and the implementation of that delete button has a bug that doesn't infact delete the copy of the photo. Then that's different to the technical way in which files generally are removed from file systems.
    - Grimeton 2y ago
      There are far too many things that don't add up: - According to reports we have photos resurfacing that are 10 years old [1] - The oldest phone supported by iOS 17 is an iPhone 11 [2], hat was released in 2019. 2024-2019 = 5. Explain how we see 10 year old photos resurfacing when the oldest phone supported is an iPhone 11 from 2019 and it is safe to assume that the photo resurfaced on a phone it was not taken on because the user MUST have switched phones in between as 10 year old models are not supported by iOS17. How does that add up? The explanation given to us is that the phone stores the images in two different locations [3]. Of course, on phones were storage space is scarce we store the same image twice. Makes perfect sense. And then they introduced deduplication in the filesystem to make up for the lost space or what? Even if we assume that the photo is just added to the Photo.App database so that it is displayed there, then that doesn't explain why a deleted image from the Photo.app that still existed on the filesystem has not been readded to the Photo.app after a system update like we see now. So there has to be some mechanism that filters those files out, which means that it's done on purpose. Another question is how did those files move between phones as we can assume users switched phones in between because of the supported devices of iOS17. Have they been part of the backup/restore process? If so, why? And why has nobody noticed that the backups became bigger and bigger? Are we probably talking about a hand full of photos here? How come some got deleted and others didn't? What kind of a bug is that? And why do people also see voice messages reappear that have been deleted ages ago? [4] I wonder what else will reappear and how Apple explains how all these files were moved between phones without bloating the backup and/or being stored somewhere in the cloud and not using space on the local storage. There are many more questions I have on this, but it's interesting to see that even security researchers just come up with a quick answer and don't question the overall situation. [1] - https://www.macrumors.com/2024/05/15/ios-17-5-bug-deleted-photos-reappear/ https://www.macrumors.com/2024/05/15/ios-17-5-bug-deleted-ph... [2] - https://support.apple.com/de-de/guide/iphone/iphe3fa5df43/ios https://support.apple.com/de-de/guide/iphone/iphe3fa5df43/io... [3] - https://old.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/1cwgljj/regarding_the_ios_175_photo_glitch/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/1cwgljj/regarding_the_... [4] - https://www.imore.com/iphone/apple-might-be-dealing-with-another-resurfacing-bug-in-ios-175-and-this-time-its-voicemails https://www.imore.com/iphone/apple-might-be-dealing-with-ano...
WheatMillington 2y ago
I'm seeing a lot of Apple apologists making this weird semantic argument. If a user selects a file and clicks "Delete", then by all reasonable measures they deleted the photo. These photos were restored LOCALLY, not from a cloud server, not that it makes a difference in a practical sense, in terms of consequence.
- joshstrange 2y ago
  My understanding is the flow was something like this: * User saves an image to the Files app (aka filesystem) * User imports image from Files to Photos * User deletes image from Photos * On the iOS update in question there was a migration to add images from the Files app to the Photos app * People think photos were undeleted when they had been in the files app all along I think we could spend a lot of time trying to determine if an imported picture that’s deleted should delete its source. Personally I think an import is a copy (not a move), and the source is left alone but I’m sure other people (people who don’t understand computers very well or those who do expect it to be a move operation) might disagree.
  - luyu_wu 2y ago
    This would imply deleting photos does not increase free space which is empiracally false. While unfortunately the iPhone's filesystem is heavily abstracted, Photo's is just a frontend for files AFAIK.
    - joshstrange 2y ago
      No, what I understand is it’s a case where you saved an image to Files, then imported the picture into Photos or just resaved the image directly to Photos. Then deleted it in Photos only, the Files version was still there.
      - luyu_wu 2y ago
        At least on Android (where I have a lot more expertise), Photos are detected by Gallery which quite literally is just a frontend with nice thumbnails. Are you sure manually importing from files to gallery is a behaviour that exists? I definetly may be misremembering iOS behaviour!
donavanm 2y ago
> Apple, like all the other cloud companies does not delete anything. This is patently false. Ive literally, personally, implemented safeties and mechanisms to responsibly remove customer content multiple times. Ive worked for both Apple and AWS and both companies take customer content and privacy very seriously. So much that it actually impedes support and business operations.
dangus 2y ago
You’re completely ignoring the actual technical details of the bug and just assuming that cloud companies will happily keep every 100GB 4K video that users upload and subsequently delete even when the user isn’t paying for it. And they’ll just keep it for some kind of vague tin foil hat “make money off your data” reason. Yeah, Facebook does that to some extent, with content that is heavily compressed in the first place, but it’s also likely they clean out information like that once they have the metadata that is valuable for advertisers or once the information becomes stale. Data that has no commercial value is actively costing the company money. Facebook is pretty upfront about this. They delete some of it…”some” presumably being the data that is worthless to them: https://www.facebook.com/help/356107851084108 https://www.facebook.com/help/356107851084108 With cloud storage providers that charge by the gigabyte and store originals that have not been compressed further, every gigabyte of data that is being allocated and not paid for is unwanted COGS. Cloud companies would be bankrupt by now if your theory was the case.

noahtallen 2y ago

I don’t think so. Firstly, there’s this: https://old.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/1cwgljj/regarding_the_ios_175_photo_glitch/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/1cwgljj/regarding_the_... Secondly, there’s the iOS changelog that mentions corrupted files re-appearing. Finally, if you have iCloud Photos turned off (as many do), nothing is getting saved to the cloud, and there’s no benefit to Apple keeping it on device. You’re suggesting that no picture in the photos app is ever truly deleted, and implying that Apple uses this for some nefarious purpose. But there’s no evidence for that.

Grimeton 2y ago
The whole article on Reddit is a farce and contradicts itself, and don't insinuate things that haven't been said.

fckgw 2y ago

This issue had nothing to do with iCloud.

NoPicklez 2y ago

Why do you "love how", the reason people say deleted, was because they deleted them and expected them to be gone and out of sight. It doesn't matter what the technical reason or method is used for 'deleting' them. It has been the case for decades that when you delete files those files aren't necessarily gone, but they are out of view from the average prying eye.

Grimeton 2y ago
And that is something you and I know but that the broader public neither knows nor really understands. And looking at what is said in this article and in other articles regarding this issue on the net it seems not even these people understand it.
- NoPicklez 2y ago
  So if that's the case then how can you make the claim that you have if people don't understand what has gone wrong. If Apple implements a function to delete a photo and the implementation of that delete button has a bug that doesn't infact delete the copy of the photo. Then that's different to the technical way in which files generally are removed from file systems.
  - Grimeton 2y ago
    There are far too many things that don't add up: - According to reports we have photos resurfacing that are 10 years old [1] - The oldest phone supported by iOS 17 is an iPhone 11 [2], hat was released in 2019. 2024-2019 = 5. Explain how we see 10 year old photos resurfacing when the oldest phone supported is an iPhone 11 from 2019 and it is safe to assume that the photo resurfaced on a phone it was not taken on because the user MUST have switched phones in between as 10 year old models are not supported by iOS17. How does that add up? The explanation given to us is that the phone stores the images in two different locations [3]. Of course, on phones were storage space is scarce we store the same image twice. Makes perfect sense. And then they introduced deduplication in the filesystem to make up for the lost space or what? Even if we assume that the photo is just added to the Photo.App database so that it is displayed there, then that doesn't explain why a deleted image from the Photo.app that still existed on the filesystem has not been readded to the Photo.app after a system update like we see now. So there has to be some mechanism that filters those files out, which means that it's done on purpose. Another question is how did those files move between phones as we can assume users switched phones in between because of the supported devices of iOS17. Have they been part of the backup/restore process? If so, why? And why has nobody noticed that the backups became bigger and bigger? Are we probably talking about a hand full of photos here? How come some got deleted and others didn't? What kind of a bug is that? And why do people also see voice messages reappear that have been deleted ages ago? [4] I wonder what else will reappear and how Apple explains how all these files were moved between phones without bloating the backup and/or being stored somewhere in the cloud and not using space on the local storage. There are many more questions I have on this, but it's interesting to see that even security researchers just come up with a quick answer and don't question the overall situation. [1] - https://www.macrumors.com/2024/05/15/ios-17-5-bug-deleted-photos-reappear/ https://www.macrumors.com/2024/05/15/ios-17-5-bug-deleted-ph... [2] - https://support.apple.com/de-de/guide/iphone/iphe3fa5df43/ios https://support.apple.com/de-de/guide/iphone/iphe3fa5df43/io... [3] - https://old.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/1cwgljj/regarding_the_ios_175_photo_glitch/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/1cwgljj/regarding_the_... [4] - https://www.imore.com/iphone/apple-might-be-dealing-with-another-resurfacing-bug-in-ios-175-and-this-time-its-voicemails https://www.imore.com/iphone/apple-might-be-dealing-with-ano...

WheatMillington 2y ago

I'm seeing a lot of Apple apologists making this weird semantic argument. If a user selects a file and clicks "Delete", then by all reasonable measures they deleted the photo. These photos were restored LOCALLY, not from a cloud server, not that it makes a difference in a practical sense, in terms of consequence.

joshstrange 2y ago
My understanding is the flow was something like this: * User saves an image to the Files app (aka filesystem) * User imports image from Files to Photos * User deletes image from Photos * On the iOS update in question there was a migration to add images from the Files app to the Photos app * People think photos were undeleted when they had been in the files app all along I think we could spend a lot of time trying to determine if an imported picture that’s deleted should delete its source. Personally I think an import is a copy (not a move), and the source is left alone but I’m sure other people (people who don’t understand computers very well or those who do expect it to be a move operation) might disagree.
- luyu_wu 2y ago
  This would imply deleting photos does not increase free space which is empiracally false. While unfortunately the iPhone's filesystem is heavily abstracted, Photo's is just a frontend for files AFAIK.
  - joshstrange 2y ago
    No, what I understand is it’s a case where you saved an image to Files, then imported the picture into Photos or just resaved the image directly to Photos. Then deleted it in Photos only, the Files version was still there.
    - luyu_wu 2y ago
      At least on Android (where I have a lot more expertise), Photos are detected by Gallery which quite literally is just a frontend with nice thumbnails. Are you sure manually importing from files to gallery is a behaviour that exists? I definetly may be misremembering iOS behaviour!

donavanm 2y ago

> Apple, like all the other cloud companies does not delete anything. This is patently false. Ive literally, personally, implemented safeties and mechanisms to responsibly remove customer content multiple times. Ive worked for both Apple and AWS and both companies take customer content and privacy very seriously. So much that it actually impedes support and business operations.

dangus 2y ago

You’re completely ignoring the actual technical details of the bug and just assuming that cloud companies will happily keep every 100GB 4K video that users upload and subsequently delete even when the user isn’t paying for it. And they’ll just keep it for some kind of vague tin foil hat “make money off your data” reason. Yeah, Facebook does that to some extent, with content that is heavily compressed in the first place, but it’s also likely they clean out information like that once they have the metadata that is valuable for advertisers or once the information becomes stale. Data that has no commercial value is actively costing the company money. Facebook is pretty upfront about this. They delete some of it…”some” presumably being the data that is worthless to them: https://www.facebook.com/help/356107851084108 https://www.facebook.com/help/356107851084108 With cloud storage providers that charge by the gigabyte and store originals that have not been compressed further, every gigabyte of data that is being allocated and not paid for is unwanted COGS. Cloud companies would be bankrupt by now if your theory was the case.