Matthew Green: ‘Dear Apple: Add “Disappearing Messages” to iMessage Right Now’
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I’m almost embarrassed to explain what this feature does, since it’s like explaining how a steering wheel works. Nevertheless. When you start a chat, you can decide how long the messages should stick around for.
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To recap, nearly every single other messaging product that people use in large numbers (at least here in the US) has some kind of disappearing messages feature. Apple’s omission is starting to be very unique.
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Gruber missed one reason Apple may not be keen to support it: disappearing messages are underhanded. “I’m going to tell you something but you can’t prove I said it.”
As my Mom used to say, “If you can’t say something that will be recorded permanently, don’t say anything at all”. Or something like that.
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Your mom recorded all her phone calls?
There’s a lot of methods of communication that we find perfectly normal that don’t leave permanent records behind.
I presume one reason that they haven’t, which is touched upon briefly, is that it gives a false sense of security. It’s easy to imagine the negative press, upset customers, and perhaps class action lawsuits that arise from messages whose disappearance really can’t be guaranteed.
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Am I the only one who deletes old and unwanted messages?
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I delete unwanted messages and threads and also have changed my settings to save one year of history otherwise. If there is a conversation I truly want to save then I use imazing to extract it.
After seeing an inadvertent personal reply to an email list at Cornell in the early 1980s, my mother’s version was that you shouldn’t put anything in email that you wouldn’t want to end up on the front page of the New York Times.
It wasn’t that it would, of course, but that it was always worth being careful about what you committed to a public or permanent medium to avoid saying something that could be used against you. Personally, I still try to adhere to this, so I’ve never been perturbed about the lack of disappearing messages. Some conversations are best had in person.
For a while into the social media era, that still seemed like useful advice. You wouldn’t want a potential employer to ding you based on your embarrassing posts from high school.
Nowadays, I suspect that most people have just given up worrying about it.
I’d be curious what your students would say these days.
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No. I was delighted when I learned that I could delete a message without deleting the thread.
I use a limited set of iMazing features, but I didn’t understand that capability. Thanks for mentioning it.
Isn’t this an issue with other messaging apps as well? It hasn’t stopped them from implementing the feature.
I delete unwanted threads but rarely delete individual messages. But deleting a message in Messages only gets rid of it on my devices. The feature Matthew Green wants would cause the message to be deleted for both sender and recipients.
While the point of “Do you record all your phone calls?” is reasonable, this feature seems like one that would be loved by abusers. Maybe others can screenshot faster than I can.
Frankly, I want a feature on my phone that says “All calls to this number may be recorded” whenever a call connects. Companies do it, and apparently it is adequate to meet the requirements of states that require multiple party consent. Would I record all my calls? No. Might I record some? Yes, particularly to business they are already making their own recording.
Kevin
None of those companies have the global footprint, oversight, or valuation of Apple.
I’m with @ace on this one. Messages, emails, blogs, are permanent (until bit rot sets in 
) so don’t say something you aren’t willing to stand-by in the future.
Disappearing messages would be just one more confusing feature to deal with. If you have friends like I do who scan messages and don’t really read them: “Did you see I sent you that number?” “What number?” those disappearing messages would be disastrous.
Now, disappearing letters would be great! I have an old amour (we’re still great friends) in France who recently told me in an excited way that she still had all my letters from 30 years ago in a box in the closet. Gasp. Hm, said I, is there a delete button for this?
Dave
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Yikes. And Yikes again, both because it merits another Yikes, and because the forum software won’t let me respond with Yikes alone.
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