It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage • Hacker News Board

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#131

Post by eli » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:46 PM UTC

ksec wrote: post #121

saagarjha wrote: post #13

My sister was having a problem where she was taking all the iCloud storage for our family because she keeps sending videos to people but couldn't figure out a way to efficiently delete them. I had to write up a Python script ( https://gist.github.com/saagarjha/615dee3c04e226b44828e910a5... ) to scrape the iMessage database for large attachments, and then print out the text to messages around it so that you could sear…

I am convinced iMessages right now is a tool to keep your storage full, push people to buy higher storage iPhone, and pay iCloud Storage backup to increase their Services Revenue. None of the problem listed in the blog post or what you point out are new. They have been there since day one. And it is not that they neglect it either like iTunes or Aperture. They added Memoji! Which is why I am surprised a the popularit…

Never attribute to malice…

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#132

Post by lucasnortj » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:46 PM UTC

Who cares. I clear out my messages all the time

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#133

Post by anonymousiam » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:47 PM UTC

Google Voice has the same problem. The search function is useless. It does not return results that should match, and it does return results that shouldn't. Scrolling back through just a few months worth of messages can take 10-20 minutes. I wish I knew why it was so awful.

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#134

Post by 600frogs » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:48 PM UTC

KishanBagaria wrote: post #129

600frogs wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just took a look at your product, I'm very impressed and have added myself to the waitlist. I'm almost even more impressed by the domain name itself though - how on earth did you manage to bag that domain?!

Bought it at the right time from the right person :)

I presume the right time was 20-30 years ago?

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#135

Post by _hyn3 » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:49 PM UTC

    iMsgs, esp vids --> GB --> new phone + icloud $$

But, I'll be honest; if you start to see all of Apple's decisions through the lens of "business decisions", you'll tend to get pretty disenchanted and crestfallen (perhaps even resentful)

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#136

Post by alisonkisk » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:49 PM UTC

ksec wrote: post #121

saagarjha wrote: post #13

My sister was having a problem where she was taking all the iCloud storage for our family because she keeps sending videos to people but couldn't figure out a way to efficiently delete them. I had to write up a Python script ( https://gist.github.com/saagarjha/615dee3c04e226b44828e910a5... ) to scrape the iMessage database for large attachments, and then print out the text to messages around it so that you could sear…

I am convinced iMessages right now is a tool to keep your storage full, push people to buy higher storage iPhone, and pay iCloud Storage backup to increase their Services Revenue. None of the problem listed in the blog post or what you point out are new. They have been there since day one. And it is not that they neglect it either like iTunes or Aperture. They added Memoji! Which is why I am surprised a the popularit…

This is also why phones have absurdly high resolution poorly compressedt camera picture/video despite the optics not makit use of all the detail.

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#137

Post by varispeed » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:50 PM UTC

The AI has trouble knowing what is important in the conversation. It seems like such difficulty creates an incentive for a user to ask someone something again instead of looking it up in history (although this also may be a signal for AI that something in the history is important).

Other reason may be that it is used by services - they want as long history as possible to find out what kind of person you are in case you are being investigated.

Anyway these artificial obstacles most often have sinister motives.

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#138

Post by eric_h » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:50 PM UTC

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #125

cryptoz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's tcook@apple.com

Seems like a humble choice for an executive to not take @corp.com.

I was under the impression that Steve Jobs’ was sjobs@apple.com

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#139

Post by alisonkisk » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

chmaynard wrote: post #66

closeparen wrote: post #58

On your Mac, iMessages are stored in a SQLite database which you can inspect. https://spin.atomicobject.com/2020/05/22/search-imessage-sql...

That's an undocumented implementation detail. It might change without warning at any time. Are you seriously recommending this as a solution for users who want to be able to read past messages?

Seems relevant news for hackers.

Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage

#140

Post by alisonkisk » Fri, May 28, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

eric_h wrote: post #138

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a humble choice for an executive to not take @corp.com.

I was under the impression that Steve Jobs’ was sjobs@apple.com

"steve" was a collision from the start.