Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did you bridge FaceTime and VoIP?
Matrix/Beeper?
Those are text-only bridges, I thought.
It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
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Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
#232My 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…
Maybe this is some kind of anti forensics because this is so hard?
Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
#233https://imazing.com/ Is worth a look if you want to backup export old messages.
Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
#234Apple's chat.db has an esoteric schema owing to the fact they never designed it from the ground up and instead kept adding new columns and tables with each macOS release. This makes their queries super complicated with multiple joins. Once you have the schema figured out, it's dead easy to build a third-party client that works better than the official one. Even search works great with a simple LIKE query but Apple re…
> "Apple's chat.db has an esoteric schema" This is basically one taken out of microsoft's .doc format playbook. At first I thought Apple was slow and just didn't have time to get to some sort of export for iMessage chats. Mail had imap, calendar had caldav, address book had carddav. The original mac stuff did other standards like AIM and jabber. But over time I began to suspect, then later those internal emails expos…
> But over time I began to suspect, then later those internal emails exposed in the lawsuits made it clear - apple was holding everyone's messages hostage.
Any source for that? I couldn't find any direct evidence for your claim.
Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
#235Have a look at this project https://airmessage.org/blog/airmessage-is-now-open-source and you'll like find ways for raw reading of your chat databases..
Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "Apple's chat.db has an esoteric schema" This is basically one taken out of microsoft's .doc format playbook. At first I thought Apple was slow and just didn't have time to get to some sort of export for iMessage chats. Mail had imap, calendar had caldav, address book had carddav. The original mac stuff did other standards like AIM and jabber. But over time I began to suspect, then later those internal emails expos…
> But over time I began to suspect, then later those internal emails exposed in the lawsuits made it clear - apple was holding everyone's messages hostage. In an SQLiteDB any programmer can learn to navigate, and any third party can build a tool to export them? Sorry but the "internal emails" prove nothing about Messages. It's just a quick and dirty implementation that "works good enough" for reading the latest, but…
Yeah I agree. The lack of a good schema/export function sounds to me like negligence not maliciousness. It’s a different issue from only allowing Apple-tech-users to use iMessage
Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally as a college student, all my friends use iPhones still. I have always wanted to switch to andriod, but one of the things that really holds me back is the fact iMessage still feels leagues above how SMS and texting works on andriod. Many subtle features of Imessage really make a difference with the overall texting experience on the iPhone over the long term. Most of my friends do not have whatsapp, and we a…
And I think the biggest of those subtle features is the blue coloured bubble, isn’t it?
No. iMessage has the low entry barrier of SMS, but has features like a real chat app. SMS is not an iMessage replacement. Instead you have to get everyone you message with to change to something like WhatsApp.
Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
#238Who uses iMessage? I mean, I never seen one using it seriously. All my friends and family members uses WhatsApp (that has more or less the same problems, but at least you can export a conversation in a text file, or now import it in Telegram), and Telegram is nowadays used by all the young people.
This is probably due to the fact that in my country the majority of people has Android phones, and thus even who has an iPhone uses the same app that uses with people with Android to chat with other Apple users.
Re: It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally as a college student, all my friends use iPhones still. I have always wanted to switch to andriod, but one of the things that really holds me back is the fact iMessage still feels leagues above how SMS and texting works on andriod. Many subtle features of Imessage really make a difference with the overall texting experience on the iPhone over the long term. Most of my friends do not have whatsapp, and we a…
And I think the biggest of those subtle features is the blue coloured bubble, isn’t it?
This blue coloured bubble thing I've never heard anyone outside of Silicon Valley engineers/media mention, but I've heard it extrapolated as a deciding factor to the rest of the world by those same people many times.
I don't think most people actually give a shit about the bubble colour.