12 ms·

Dear Apple: Add "Disappearing Messages" to iMessage

90 points by donohoe 2y ago

radicality 2y ago
Idk, I’m glad it doesn’t exist in iMessage. There’s enough other apps you can elect to use if you want such a feature, and you and the other party agree that your threat model necessitates this. I’m already quite annoyed apple implemented unsend, and message edit. I’ve always disliked all these features since it puts someone else (the other party), in control of what should be your message.
- thisislife2 2y ago
  > it puts someone else (the other party), in control of what should be your message. Is it your message though? Doesn't the copyright belong to who wrote it (the sender)?
  - kelnos 2y ago
    Yes, but I think GP's point is that it's unnerving that someone can give something to you, and then modify it without your consent. Sort of like how it's not cool that Amazon can sell you a Kindle book, and then silently update or even remove it without your consent. (Not the same thing, of course, but it's in the same family of weird.) One potential real-world issue is that a text message conversation could be used as evidence of domestic abuse or of general harassment or threats. If the perpetrator can edit the message history for both parties at will, that's a problem. In practice, of course, there are ways to solve this problem, like the device keeping around the history of edits (Signal does this, not sure if others do), and the app can also limit the reach of this sort of nefariousness by disabling the edit function after a certain amount of time.
  - dullcrisp 2y ago
    By reading this message you agree to the following terms: (a) any thoughts or replies inspired by this message (“the message”) are exclusive property of the writer of the message (dullcrisp on Hacker News), (b) at any time, dullcrisp may revoke your license to read or reply to this message, (c) you agree to remove this message from your browser’s cache and expunge any other copies made of this message at dullcrisp’s request or within 24 hours of receipt, whichever comes first.
  - scintill76 2y ago
    It's your copy of the message. I'm not a lawyer, but I think if a copyright owner gives you a copy of their work, the law doesn't entitle them to take it back or rewrite it. A license agreement might, but nobody writes or signs those to cover text messages.
    - speerer 2y ago
      I think a more useful way to analyze this is that a message, when it is sent to you, is not serving the purpose of a copyright work. So copyright should not really be the lens through which we analyze this.
      - almosthere 2y ago
        Copyright isn't the entire point though. If someone says: I'm going to kill your husband in a text. Your husband is murdered, and you take your phone to the police, is that text still going to be there?
  - jeroenhd 2y ago
    I don't think copyright matters. These messages are a conversation between you and someone else. I don't see why only one party should have control over them. I have the legal right to record a conversation I play a significant role in, so I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to do the same over messaging apps. Disappearing messages can be great for privacy and I applaud them for that use case, but they can also easily be used to hide evidence of abuse and other nasty stuff right from the victim's phone. I'd suggest a good implementation of this feature should come with a setting to disable disappearing messages by default (a setting which should be off). With the setting on, the sender should see the option to send disappearing messages be disabled, and the other party should be able to turn them back on on a per-chat basis. The setting should probably also allow tracking of edits/deleted messages. That way, people are in control and can know what to expect from their messengers. You won't find yourself lacking evidence of blackmail after the fact because your chat history unexpectedly deleted itself. Furthermore, I think that most messaging within apps that provide this feature puts too much trust in the remote device. If you enable this feature, apps pretend that it's a sure and done deal, when in reality there are myriad ways of extracting messages before they're deleted. As someone who bridges most of their chat apps through a (private) Matrix server, I've toyed with the idea of disabling the delete functionality to keep control on my side of the conversation. So far, I haven't needed it, but having the ability to do so if necessary gives a certain amount of comfort.
    - wang_li 2y ago
      > I have the legal right to record a conversation I play a significant role in, so I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to do the same over messaging apps. It depends on where you are. In the US plenty of states require consent from all parties to a conversation to record it. The only function of this rule is to allow people to lie about what the conversation was about, as there is no law that prevents a party to the conversation writing it down and sharing it to the public. And that's exactly what I think about disappearing messages. The only function of this is to be able to lie about the message. I'm not interested in having a system where someone can set their message retention to 5 minutes and then send a bunch of abusive messages to me. Or some sort of phishing message. If they choose to add this to iMessage they should also include an option that automatically rejects all disappearing messages and reply to the sender indicating that their message was rejected. Or optionally, if I could set my phone to ignore the expiration time and retain the message forever. It's my phone and I'm paying for the phone service. It's up to me how my device is used, not some third party. If they don't like my terms, they should choose not to involve me. Not everything needs to be the equivalent of a midnight whisper in a dark alley.
- pmontra 2y ago
  In a different messenger: people enable disappearing messages in WhatsApp not because of a threat model but because they don't want their phone to run out of space. The problem here is that messages are deleted for everybody in the chat and I saw people complaining about that in group chats. They would like that messages are deleted only for the people that enabled disappearing messages on their phones. Sometimes the creator of the group realized that everybody was an admin, set only themselves as admin and disabled disappearing messages. I don't own an iPhone so I don't know for sure if old messages clog iPhones too but the article hints that this is the case. Maybe Apple is happy to sell new phones with more storage to people that run out of space. Maybe iMessage is a tiny storage eater, maybe not. Photos, videos, vocal messages are on the phone forever too?
  - genewitch 2y ago
    > don't want their phone to run out of space Has this excuse ever worked?
    - pmontra 2y ago
      Sometimes, for groups with only messages of truly ephemeral value. If nobody values much what's written there (memes, where and when to meet, good morning, etc) then everybody is happy to see pictures and videos disappear and storage recovered.
      - genewitch 2y ago
        I was talking with a fellow Matrix server admin and comparing our on disk DB sizes, theirs was 430GB and mine is ~7.3GB, total media size of 14GB or so. They said the MatrixHQ room bloated the database by 1100GB. however, on the client side, you don't cache all that stuff, only what you can see; you have to scroll up and wait for the server to fetch it and show it to you if you wanna see older stuff. You can use the search, too, and that's "relatively" quick, and will scroll back to the correct spot. But in larger rooms with more media, clicking the result to get the context is hit-or-miss.
  - mos_6502 2y ago
- stavros 2y ago
  I really don't understand this "I don't want to have a choice" mindset that I only see here for stuff relating to Apple. Why would you want something to be missing for everyone, when the people who don't want it could just not use it?
  - jisnsm 2y ago
    Because even if you don’t want to use a feature, others will use it with you.
    - stavros 2y ago
      But you can still turn it off.
      - jisnsm 2y ago
        Others will text you and insist that you keep the feature on for the conversation.
        stavros 2y ago
        If someone will absolutely not accept talking without disappearing messages, they probably won't go "well iMessage doesn't have the feature so I might as well talk without it", they'd ask that you switch over to an app that does have it.
        jisnsm 2y ago
        I disagree, because I’ve lived it and I know how it goes. It’s the same as unsending messages - you can ask people not to do it, but if the option exists, they will do it anyway. I’d rather that options I don’t like don’t exist.
        DrillShopper 2y ago
        There are several people I know who have messaged me on Discord while I'm working/busy/sleeping and then deleted the message after it didn't get a response "fast enough" for them. However, the messages stay in the phone notifications, so I'll reply to them. Lost a friend over that, actually. "Well you should have respected my wish to not read those messages" "THEN DON'T SEND THEM"
- RataNova 2y ago
  But I don't think disappearing messages are about putting control in someone else's hands; they're about giving both parties the option to communicate more privately when needed.
- freedomben 2y ago
  From what I've been told as an Android user repeatedly over the years, anything-but-iMessage is a (often-times insurmountable) burden on many iphone users who only want to use one app for all the things, and for whatever reasons that one app must be iMessage. As ridiculous as it may sound, my kids have actually been left out of social groups in the past because iMessage doesn't (or didn't?) work very well with Android phones. So presumedly, if Apple doesn't implement it then there's a large group of people with no access to this feature since they are unable or unwilling to use a different app. It would make sense to me that is part of the motivation for the advocacy.
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    > and for whatever reasons that one app must be iMessage iMessage isn't an app. It's just the Messages app, and the reason it's that app is because it's the SMS app. There's zero effort to using Messages. It just works, and it just works to communicate with everyone because it will always fall back to SMS. Every single other app, the receiver has to have installed first. > As ridiculous as it may sound, my kids have actually been left out of social groups in the past because iMessage doesn't (or didn't?) work very well with Android phones It's unfortunate but not ridiculous. SMS is bad for sharing media and missing a lot of features that make for better conversation. And group texts in SMS are just kind of broken in a lot of different ways, nothing to do with iMessage.
    - radlad 2y ago
      > SMS is bad for sharing media and missing a lot of features that make for better conversation. And group texts in SMS are just kind of broken in a lot of different ways, nothing to do with iMessage. RCS solves these issues.
      - crazygringo 2y ago
        That's true. RCS has only been present on iPhones in the past few months. Are people even remotely aware? Have they noticed a difference? I wonder if it might takes years for people to regain trust with carrier-provided messages with group texts...
- eddieroger 2y ago
  > in control of what should be your message The message isn't yours anymore after you sent it, it's the other party's now. When you mail someone a letter, it's up to them what to do with it. Why would this be different? If you want to retain control over something, don't give it away on a medium you can't control.
  - zerocrates 2y ago
    That's what the parent post means. Unsend and message edit are methods for the sender maintaining control, which is what they don't like.
    - radicality 2y ago
      Yep, exactly what I meant, the moment I send someone else a message, from that point it it basically duplicates itself and I keep my copy (and if I feel like it I can delete my local copy of it), and they get their own. So I shouldn't be able to 'take back' or edit what I now logically think of as their copy of the message!
gjhan 2y ago
Once someone else receives, decrypts, and reads the message, the nexus of control in the iMessage system is really lost. "Disappearance" at the appointed time would probably be by far the lowest assurance property that the system would have, and Apple may simply not want to present properties that unreliable as an attribute of the system.
popularonion 2y ago
If only Snapchat didn’t lose cultural relevance, how different things could have been
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  I live in a WhatsApp country and nobody I know uses disappearing messages. I don't think people even know about the feature. Having the option doesn't mean much if people don't use it.
- diggan 2y ago
  Apparently still mainstream popular in some countries! I don't live there anymore, but apparently most people (still) use Snapchat in Sweden for most of their communication, at least judging by even my friends and family who still lives there. Compared to Spain where I live now where it's maybe 10%/20%/70% Telegram/Instagram/Whatsapp that most people communicate via, almost no one I know here uses snapchat except foreigners. Shockingly, most people believe that snapchat actually deletes the content the end-user can no longer see themselves via the app, which for me sounds like an absolutely bananas assumption. But it makes it clear how far the disconnect is between people with tech-know-how vs "normal" people.
almosthere 2y ago
Dear writer, get an app that has "Disappearing Messages"
- stavros 2y ago
  Dear commenter, comment on some other article instead.
ohgr 2y ago
The principal reason “normal non tech” people use this is for nefarious reasons from experience. Nefarious being sending photos of their dick or threats or being horrible. Fortunately you can turn it off on WhatsApp but it’s per contact which is usually too late. My partner and numerous female friends get this all the time. So please don’t add it to iMessage. If you don’t want someone to see something or retain it, don’t send it. There isn’t a magic solution. They can just screenshot it anyway.
- ryvi 2y ago
  I don't really understand your concern. Why is it too late if you have received one of those messages? You don't have to open it. In fact you can delete the message unopened, while the other party can clearly see that you didn't open it.
  - ohgr 2y ago
    The point is if you want to report someone for it for sexual harassment, which is exactly what it is, then the disappearing message is a problem. You don't just ignore it. You deal with it.
    - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
      You can just screenshot it if you need evidence of its existence for some reason. The point is to spare the other party the hassle of having to think about their opsec after-the-fact, not to trap them in a setting they don't want.
      - RandomBacon 2y ago
        And have a reminder of it everytime you open your pictures app? Or if you're scrolling through to show something to someone else, it's hard to mistake a penis for something else even when it's a thumbnail if that other person sees.
        2y ago
michelb 2y ago
The functionality is already there, it happens sometimes but I have no control over it. /s
rgovostes 2y ago
There sort of are "burn after reading" voice messages. After they're played once, they're removed after 2 minutes. The recipient can tap "Keep" to permanently save the audio. This returns to the sender the prone-to-misinterpretation warning, "So-and-so kept a message from you." The "Keep" function is actually an important signal here to the user that breaks the expectation that disappearing messages are unassailable. The recipient can always make a copy.
bradgessler 2y ago
Why? The person reading the message can take a screenshot of it.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  If somebody sent you a message that could get you in trouble if it was found on your phone, and they set it to disappear, why would you screenshot it?
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    Because the message isn't one that could get you into trouble, it's one that could get the other person into trouble. And maybe you want them to get into trouble. That's the entire point. This isn't about deleting other people's messages on your phone, this is about deleting your messages on other people's phones.
    - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
      I'm sure there's a use case that fits what you're describing, but I've never seen it. 100% of the time I've seen disappearing messages used in the wild, it's been for the benefit of both parties--even if one is a bit more diligent than the other about it.
neximo64 2y ago
> Why won’t Apple add a disappearing messages feature? Most customers (especially non engineer) are apathetic to disappearing messages. Also its kind of 'fake' you can just take screenshots.
- vaylian 2y ago
  > Also its kind of 'fake' you can just take screenshots. That's not the point of disappearing messages. Maybe "expiring messages" would be a better name. The point is that you and your communication partners don't have to clean up your messages manually. If the messages are not stored indefinitely, then they are a lot less likely to be leaked in a data breach. Just like face-to-face conversations, the discussion can be ephemeral.
  - lurking_swe 2y ago
    > partners don't have to clean up your messages manually good news, you can already do this (been possible for years). Open Settings, find the settings for `Messages`, and change the `Keep Messages` option to 30 days, 1 year, or forever. I suppose it would be nice if this setting was more granular, for example per thread...but I think the status quo suits most people just fine?
- ziofill 2y ago
  Since they control the OS the could also restrict that.
  - aliher1911 2y ago
    You can make a picture of a screen with camera. I always do that with apps that restrict screenshots.
    - ziofill 2y ago
      Sure sure, but it's one extra step that may not always be available.
librasteve 2y ago
There’s no point in disappearing iMessages when they drop down to SMS to talk to dumb phones (eg android) since the telco is mandated to store them unencrypted for law enforcement.
- mort96 2y ago
  How does this make sense? Dropping down to SMS is not something that happens transparently, the user is made aware of whether they're sending an iMessage or an SMS. Disappearing messages would obviously only be available when sending an iMessage. This argument is 1 tiny step away from, "there's no point in encryption in Signal because if the Signal wants to send a message to someone not on Signal they may choose to send the message as an SMS which is not encrypted". I don't think I agree with the author that iMessage needs disappearing messages but man please make arguments which make sense!
  - librasteve 2y ago
    Sorry I did not explain my argument very clearly, please allow me to elaborate... On Transparency: When you send an Apple iMessage to a non Apple device it is sent via SMS - this can be seen since the colour of the message text shows as gray (or is that green) and not blue. In many use cases, it is not sensible to check the device type of the recipient. The transition from Internet to SMS is performed transparently in that you are not aware of it until after it has been done. You are not warned or given the option to agree to this drop down. (There may be a mode for this, but I am referring to the general situation for most users). Bear in mind that as soon as the drop down to SMS occurs, the message content is sent in the clear over a telco network and that national telco's are required to store all message content for law enforcement. On Disappearance: A main benefit of having disappearing message in WhatsApp, Signal and so on - which I assume have proper E2EE (?) is that, after a while, there is no record in the cloud that can legitimately be accessed by law enforcement - even if local law requires me to give up my password. This is true for all parties to the chat - although it requires trust that a counter-party is not screen shotting away. Summary: So, the main thrust of my argument is that it would be impossible to deliver the main benefit of disappearance in iMessage since it would only be applied to some of the messages depending on the other users device. Of course, Apple could disable text messaging and they could offer the iMessage app on other devices (or allow compatible 3rd party apps). However, for Apple iMessage is a tool that suppresses the value of SMS and limits the ability of mobile network operators to extract revenue.
RataNova 2y ago
Apple does feel behind the curve here. Nearly every other major platform has figured out how to balance disappearing messages with usability, so why not iMessage?
- Gigachad 2y ago
  iMessage feels behind in a lot of ways. Even just media feels broken. Tap an image and it takes a second before anything happens. Playing videos feels sluggish too. Every other app responds instantly.
  - RataNova 2y ago
    Yeah, I've noticed that too. iMessage feels oddly clunky when it comes to media
Smithalicious 2y ago
No, absolutely NO. I consider features like this blatantly user-hostile. I personally keep full text logs of all my chat conversations archived indefinitely and refer back to old logs all the time. Once I have received a message it is mine, and no device manufacturer has the right to reach into my device and delete it from me -- actual malware behaviour! I feel the same way about the ability to edit messages and the like. Actual antifeatures, and some of the things I'm most upset being forced to accept due to network effects.
quitit 2y ago
Related, but different: a reminder that you can wipe messages on your device per the setting: Settings -> Apps -> Messages -> Message History: Keep messages: 30 Days, 1 Year, or Forever.
quitit 2y ago
I can take a guess why it's not there: The user should have the belief that all of their messages are being saved indefinitely. A false sense of security can give rise to the behaviour of sharing too much. There is no disappearing message feature which actually prevents the message from being saved in some form: 1. Many apps with this feature still allow screenshots of the one-time or time-limited message. 2. The apps which block or notify of screenshots, are trivially defeated by using a second device to record the screen. 3. Jail-breaks exist specifically to disable screenshot protection and notification features. Finally you can set your own messages to auto delete, ans this is the most likely route of probing your message history. (I also understand that the default setting is to delete all messages after 30 days.)
refurb 2y ago
I’d never trust it. Rather, I’d never put something in iMessage I wasn’t comfortable with others knowing. There are way too many ways for it to leak. If I really need to share something sensitive, then actually encrypt it and send in as a secure channel as you can.
crazygringo 2y ago
> Why won’t Apple add a disappearing messages feature? Because iMessage frequently falls back to SMS, which means there's zero ability to implement it on the receiver's phone. I don't know if it's more to do with my phone's reception or the other person's or what, but I have text chains that are full of a mix of blue and green bubbles. The idea that blue bubbles will get deleted after a period of time but green bubbles won't would be deeply confusing. Especially when you don't even know what color the message is going to turn out to be until after you send it.
speckx 2y ago
Cool, but before Apple even considers this, maybe work on better spam and blocking.

90 points by donohoe 2y ago

Idk, I’m glad it doesn’t exist in iMessage. There’s enough other apps you can elect to use if you want such a feature, and you and the other party agree that your threat model necessitates this. I’m already quite annoyed apple implemented unsend, and message edit. I’ve always disliked all these features since it puts someone else (the other party), in control of what should be your message.

thisislife2 2y ago
> it puts someone else (the other party), in control of what should be your message. Is it your message though? Doesn't the copyright belong to who wrote it (the sender)?
- kelnos 2y ago
  Yes, but I think GP's point is that it's unnerving that someone can give something to you, and then modify it without your consent. Sort of like how it's not cool that Amazon can sell you a Kindle book, and then silently update or even remove it without your consent. (Not the same thing, of course, but it's in the same family of weird.) One potential real-world issue is that a text message conversation could be used as evidence of domestic abuse or of general harassment or threats. If the perpetrator can edit the message history for both parties at will, that's a problem. In practice, of course, there are ways to solve this problem, like the device keeping around the history of edits (Signal does this, not sure if others do), and the app can also limit the reach of this sort of nefariousness by disabling the edit function after a certain amount of time.
- dullcrisp 2y ago
  By reading this message you agree to the following terms: (a) any thoughts or replies inspired by this message (“the message”) are exclusive property of the writer of the message (dullcrisp on Hacker News), (b) at any time, dullcrisp may revoke your license to read or reply to this message, (c) you agree to remove this message from your browser’s cache and expunge any other copies made of this message at dullcrisp’s request or within 24 hours of receipt, whichever comes first.
- scintill76 2y ago
  It's your copy of the message. I'm not a lawyer, but I think if a copyright owner gives you a copy of their work, the law doesn't entitle them to take it back or rewrite it. A license agreement might, but nobody writes or signs those to cover text messages.
  - speerer 2y ago
    I think a more useful way to analyze this is that a message, when it is sent to you, is not serving the purpose of a copyright work. So copyright should not really be the lens through which we analyze this.
    - almosthere 2y ago
      Copyright isn't the entire point though. If someone says: I'm going to kill your husband in a text. Your husband is murdered, and you take your phone to the police, is that text still going to be there?
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  I don't think copyright matters. These messages are a conversation between you and someone else. I don't see why only one party should have control over them. I have the legal right to record a conversation I play a significant role in, so I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to do the same over messaging apps. Disappearing messages can be great for privacy and I applaud them for that use case, but they can also easily be used to hide evidence of abuse and other nasty stuff right from the victim's phone. I'd suggest a good implementation of this feature should come with a setting to disable disappearing messages by default (a setting which should be off). With the setting on, the sender should see the option to send disappearing messages be disabled, and the other party should be able to turn them back on on a per-chat basis. The setting should probably also allow tracking of edits/deleted messages. That way, people are in control and can know what to expect from their messengers. You won't find yourself lacking evidence of blackmail after the fact because your chat history unexpectedly deleted itself. Furthermore, I think that most messaging within apps that provide this feature puts too much trust in the remote device. If you enable this feature, apps pretend that it's a sure and done deal, when in reality there are myriad ways of extracting messages before they're deleted. As someone who bridges most of their chat apps through a (private) Matrix server, I've toyed with the idea of disabling the delete functionality to keep control on my side of the conversation. So far, I haven't needed it, but having the ability to do so if necessary gives a certain amount of comfort.
  - wang_li 2y ago
    > I have the legal right to record a conversation I play a significant role in, so I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to do the same over messaging apps. It depends on where you are. In the US plenty of states require consent from all parties to a conversation to record it. The only function of this rule is to allow people to lie about what the conversation was about, as there is no law that prevents a party to the conversation writing it down and sharing it to the public. And that's exactly what I think about disappearing messages. The only function of this is to be able to lie about the message. I'm not interested in having a system where someone can set their message retention to 5 minutes and then send a bunch of abusive messages to me. Or some sort of phishing message. If they choose to add this to iMessage they should also include an option that automatically rejects all disappearing messages and reply to the sender indicating that their message was rejected. Or optionally, if I could set my phone to ignore the expiration time and retain the message forever. It's my phone and I'm paying for the phone service. It's up to me how my device is used, not some third party. If they don't like my terms, they should choose not to involve me. Not everything needs to be the equivalent of a midnight whisper in a dark alley.
pmontra 2y ago
In a different messenger: people enable disappearing messages in WhatsApp not because of a threat model but because they don't want their phone to run out of space. The problem here is that messages are deleted for everybody in the chat and I saw people complaining about that in group chats. They would like that messages are deleted only for the people that enabled disappearing messages on their phones. Sometimes the creator of the group realized that everybody was an admin, set only themselves as admin and disabled disappearing messages. I don't own an iPhone so I don't know for sure if old messages clog iPhones too but the article hints that this is the case. Maybe Apple is happy to sell new phones with more storage to people that run out of space. Maybe iMessage is a tiny storage eater, maybe not. Photos, videos, vocal messages are on the phone forever too?
- genewitch 2y ago
  > don't want their phone to run out of space Has this excuse ever worked?
  - pmontra 2y ago
    Sometimes, for groups with only messages of truly ephemeral value. If nobody values much what's written there (memes, where and when to meet, good morning, etc) then everybody is happy to see pictures and videos disappear and storage recovered.
    - genewitch 2y ago
      I was talking with a fellow Matrix server admin and comparing our on disk DB sizes, theirs was 430GB and mine is ~7.3GB, total media size of 14GB or so. They said the MatrixHQ room bloated the database by 1100GB. however, on the client side, you don't cache all that stuff, only what you can see; you have to scroll up and wait for the server to fetch it and show it to you if you wanna see older stuff. You can use the search, too, and that's "relatively" quick, and will scroll back to the correct spot. But in larger rooms with more media, clicking the result to get the context is hit-or-miss.
- mos_6502 2y ago
stavros 2y ago
I really don't understand this "I don't want to have a choice" mindset that I only see here for stuff relating to Apple. Why would you want something to be missing for everyone, when the people who don't want it could just not use it?
- jisnsm 2y ago
  Because even if you don’t want to use a feature, others will use it with you.
  - stavros 2y ago
    But you can still turn it off.
    - jisnsm 2y ago
      Others will text you and insist that you keep the feature on for the conversation.
      - stavros 2y ago
        If someone will absolutely not accept talking without disappearing messages, they probably won't go "well iMessage doesn't have the feature so I might as well talk without it", they'd ask that you switch over to an app that does have it.
        jisnsm 2y ago
        I disagree, because I’ve lived it and I know how it goes. It’s the same as unsending messages - you can ask people not to do it, but if the option exists, they will do it anyway. I’d rather that options I don’t like don’t exist.
        DrillShopper 2y ago
        There are several people I know who have messaged me on Discord while I'm working/busy/sleeping and then deleted the message after it didn't get a response "fast enough" for them. However, the messages stay in the phone notifications, so I'll reply to them. Lost a friend over that, actually. "Well you should have respected my wish to not read those messages" "THEN DON'T SEND THEM"
RataNova 2y ago
But I don't think disappearing messages are about putting control in someone else's hands; they're about giving both parties the option to communicate more privately when needed.
freedomben 2y ago
From what I've been told as an Android user repeatedly over the years, anything-but-iMessage is a (often-times insurmountable) burden on many iphone users who only want to use one app for all the things, and for whatever reasons that one app must be iMessage. As ridiculous as it may sound, my kids have actually been left out of social groups in the past because iMessage doesn't (or didn't?) work very well with Android phones. So presumedly, if Apple doesn't implement it then there's a large group of people with no access to this feature since they are unable or unwilling to use a different app. It would make sense to me that is part of the motivation for the advocacy.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  > and for whatever reasons that one app must be iMessage iMessage isn't an app. It's just the Messages app, and the reason it's that app is because it's the SMS app. There's zero effort to using Messages. It just works, and it just works to communicate with everyone because it will always fall back to SMS. Every single other app, the receiver has to have installed first. > As ridiculous as it may sound, my kids have actually been left out of social groups in the past because iMessage doesn't (or didn't?) work very well with Android phones It's unfortunate but not ridiculous. SMS is bad for sharing media and missing a lot of features that make for better conversation. And group texts in SMS are just kind of broken in a lot of different ways, nothing to do with iMessage.
  - radlad 2y ago
    > SMS is bad for sharing media and missing a lot of features that make for better conversation. And group texts in SMS are just kind of broken in a lot of different ways, nothing to do with iMessage. RCS solves these issues.
    - crazygringo 2y ago
      That's true. RCS has only been present on iPhones in the past few months. Are people even remotely aware? Have they noticed a difference? I wonder if it might takes years for people to regain trust with carrier-provided messages with group texts...
eddieroger 2y ago
> in control of what should be your message The message isn't yours anymore after you sent it, it's the other party's now. When you mail someone a letter, it's up to them what to do with it. Why would this be different? If you want to retain control over something, don't give it away on a medium you can't control.
- zerocrates 2y ago
  That's what the parent post means. Unsend and message edit are methods for the sender maintaining control, which is what they don't like.
  - radicality 2y ago
    Yep, exactly what I meant, the moment I send someone else a message, from that point it it basically duplicates itself and I keep my copy (and if I feel like it I can delete my local copy of it), and they get their own. So I shouldn't be able to 'take back' or edit what I now logically think of as their copy of the message!

gjhan 2y ago

Once someone else receives, decrypts, and reads the message, the nexus of control in the iMessage system is really lost. "Disappearance" at the appointed time would probably be by far the lowest assurance property that the system would have, and Apple may simply not want to present properties that unreliable as an attribute of the system.

popularonion 2y ago

If only Snapchat didn’t lose cultural relevance, how different things could have been

jeroenhd 2y ago
I live in a WhatsApp country and nobody I know uses disappearing messages. I don't think people even know about the feature. Having the option doesn't mean much if people don't use it.
diggan 2y ago
Apparently still mainstream popular in some countries! I don't live there anymore, but apparently most people (still) use Snapchat in Sweden for most of their communication, at least judging by even my friends and family who still lives there. Compared to Spain where I live now where it's maybe 10%/20%/70% Telegram/Instagram/Whatsapp that most people communicate via, almost no one I know here uses snapchat except foreigners. Shockingly, most people believe that snapchat actually deletes the content the end-user can no longer see themselves via the app, which for me sounds like an absolutely bananas assumption. But it makes it clear how far the disconnect is between people with tech-know-how vs "normal" people.

almosthere 2y ago

Dear writer, get an app that has "Disappearing Messages"

stavros 2y ago
Dear commenter, comment on some other article instead.

ohgr 2y ago

The principal reason “normal non tech” people use this is for nefarious reasons from experience. Nefarious being sending photos of their dick or threats or being horrible. Fortunately you can turn it off on WhatsApp but it’s per contact which is usually too late. My partner and numerous female friends get this all the time. So please don’t add it to iMessage. If you don’t want someone to see something or retain it, don’t send it. There isn’t a magic solution. They can just screenshot it anyway.

ryvi 2y ago
I don't really understand your concern. Why is it too late if you have received one of those messages? You don't have to open it. In fact you can delete the message unopened, while the other party can clearly see that you didn't open it.
- ohgr 2y ago
  The point is if you want to report someone for it for sexual harassment, which is exactly what it is, then the disappearing message is a problem. You don't just ignore it. You deal with it.
  - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
    You can just screenshot it if you need evidence of its existence for some reason. The point is to spare the other party the hassle of having to think about their opsec after-the-fact, not to trap them in a setting they don't want.
    - RandomBacon 2y ago
      And have a reminder of it everytime you open your pictures app? Or if you're scrolling through to show something to someone else, it's hard to mistake a penis for something else even when it's a thumbnail if that other person sees.
      - 2y ago

michelb 2y ago

The functionality is already there, it happens sometimes but I have no control over it. /s

rgovostes 2y ago

There sort of are "burn after reading" voice messages. After they're played once, they're removed after 2 minutes. The recipient can tap "Keep" to permanently save the audio. This returns to the sender the prone-to-misinterpretation warning, "So-and-so kept a message from you." The "Keep" function is actually an important signal here to the user that breaks the expectation that disappearing messages are unassailable. The recipient can always make a copy.

bradgessler 2y ago

Why? The person reading the message can take a screenshot of it.

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
If somebody sent you a message that could get you in trouble if it was found on your phone, and they set it to disappear, why would you screenshot it?
- crazygringo 2y ago
  Because the message isn't one that could get you into trouble, it's one that could get the other person into trouble. And maybe you want them to get into trouble. That's the entire point. This isn't about deleting other people's messages on your phone, this is about deleting your messages on other people's phones.
  - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
    I'm sure there's a use case that fits what you're describing, but I've never seen it. 100% of the time I've seen disappearing messages used in the wild, it's been for the benefit of both parties--even if one is a bit more diligent than the other about it.

neximo64 2y ago

> Why won’t Apple add a disappearing messages feature? Most customers (especially non engineer) are apathetic to disappearing messages. Also its kind of 'fake' you can just take screenshots.

vaylian 2y ago
> Also its kind of 'fake' you can just take screenshots. That's not the point of disappearing messages. Maybe "expiring messages" would be a better name. The point is that you and your communication partners don't have to clean up your messages manually. If the messages are not stored indefinitely, then they are a lot less likely to be leaked in a data breach. Just like face-to-face conversations, the discussion can be ephemeral.
- lurking_swe 2y ago
  > partners don't have to clean up your messages manually good news, you can already do this (been possible for years). Open Settings, find the settings for `Messages`, and change the `Keep Messages` option to 30 days, 1 year, or forever. I suppose it would be nice if this setting was more granular, for example per thread...but I think the status quo suits most people just fine?
ziofill 2y ago
Since they control the OS the could also restrict that.
- aliher1911 2y ago
  You can make a picture of a screen with camera. I always do that with apps that restrict screenshots.
  - ziofill 2y ago
    Sure sure, but it's one extra step that may not always be available.

librasteve 2y ago

There’s no point in disappearing iMessages when they drop down to SMS to talk to dumb phones (eg android) since the telco is mandated to store them unencrypted for law enforcement.

mort96 2y ago
How does this make sense? Dropping down to SMS is not something that happens transparently, the user is made aware of whether they're sending an iMessage or an SMS. Disappearing messages would obviously only be available when sending an iMessage. This argument is 1 tiny step away from, "there's no point in encryption in Signal because if the Signal wants to send a message to someone not on Signal they may choose to send the message as an SMS which is not encrypted". I don't think I agree with the author that iMessage needs disappearing messages but man please make arguments which make sense!
- librasteve 2y ago
  Sorry I did not explain my argument very clearly, please allow me to elaborate... On Transparency: When you send an Apple iMessage to a non Apple device it is sent via SMS - this can be seen since the colour of the message text shows as gray (or is that green) and not blue. In many use cases, it is not sensible to check the device type of the recipient. The transition from Internet to SMS is performed transparently in that you are not aware of it until after it has been done. You are not warned or given the option to agree to this drop down. (There may be a mode for this, but I am referring to the general situation for most users). Bear in mind that as soon as the drop down to SMS occurs, the message content is sent in the clear over a telco network and that national telco's are required to store all message content for law enforcement. On Disappearance: A main benefit of having disappearing message in WhatsApp, Signal and so on - which I assume have proper E2EE (?) is that, after a while, there is no record in the cloud that can legitimately be accessed by law enforcement - even if local law requires me to give up my password. This is true for all parties to the chat - although it requires trust that a counter-party is not screen shotting away. Summary: So, the main thrust of my argument is that it would be impossible to deliver the main benefit of disappearance in iMessage since it would only be applied to some of the messages depending on the other users device. Of course, Apple could disable text messaging and they could offer the iMessage app on other devices (or allow compatible 3rd party apps). However, for Apple iMessage is a tool that suppresses the value of SMS and limits the ability of mobile network operators to extract revenue.

RataNova 2y ago

Apple does feel behind the curve here. Nearly every other major platform has figured out how to balance disappearing messages with usability, so why not iMessage?

Gigachad 2y ago
iMessage feels behind in a lot of ways. Even just media feels broken. Tap an image and it takes a second before anything happens. Playing videos feels sluggish too. Every other app responds instantly.
- RataNova 2y ago
  Yeah, I've noticed that too. iMessage feels oddly clunky when it comes to media

Smithalicious 2y ago

No, absolutely NO. I consider features like this blatantly user-hostile. I personally keep full text logs of all my chat conversations archived indefinitely and refer back to old logs all the time. Once I have received a message it is mine, and no device manufacturer has the right to reach into my device and delete it from me -- actual malware behaviour! I feel the same way about the ability to edit messages and the like. Actual antifeatures, and some of the things I'm most upset being forced to accept due to network effects.

quitit 2y ago

Related, but different: a reminder that you can wipe messages on your device per the setting: Settings -> Apps -> Messages -> Message History: Keep messages: 30 Days, 1 Year, or Forever.

quitit 2y ago

I can take a guess why it's not there: The user should have the belief that all of their messages are being saved indefinitely. A false sense of security can give rise to the behaviour of sharing too much. There is no disappearing message feature which actually prevents the message from being saved in some form: 1. Many apps with this feature still allow screenshots of the one-time or time-limited message. 2. The apps which block or notify of screenshots, are trivially defeated by using a second device to record the screen. 3. Jail-breaks exist specifically to disable screenshot protection and notification features. Finally you can set your own messages to auto delete, ans this is the most likely route of probing your message history. (I also understand that the default setting is to delete all messages after 30 days.)

refurb 2y ago

I’d never trust it. Rather, I’d never put something in iMessage I wasn’t comfortable with others knowing. There are way too many ways for it to leak. If I really need to share something sensitive, then actually encrypt it and send in as a secure channel as you can.

crazygringo 2y ago

> Why won’t Apple add a disappearing messages feature? Because iMessage frequently falls back to SMS, which means there's zero ability to implement it on the receiver's phone. I don't know if it's more to do with my phone's reception or the other person's or what, but I have text chains that are full of a mix of blue and green bubbles. The idea that blue bubbles will get deleted after a period of time but green bubbles won't would be deeply confusing. Especially when you don't even know what color the message is going to turn out to be until after you send it.

speckx 2y ago

Cool, but before Apple even considers this, maybe work on better spam and blocking.