And it doesn't seem to be removed from the macOS beta...
Hoping my synced iCloud iMessages will still be available when the final version of this feature is released. Can anyone confirm if that will be the case?
Apple removed it for that beta. (c) Release notes
Hey Stan, yes that's correct but that's not my question. I read the Release notes and have chosen not to update yet because this feature was removed.
I'm wondering if anyone can confirm that the iMessages that have been synced already with this feature will be able to be restored when the feature is released?
There's so little info about how the final version of this "syncing" will work... ie if a message deleted on one device will be deleted on others, etc...
In general, no there has been no confirmation or information.
Also... fun fact: turns out that Apple removed this feature from the latest macOS build as well. Except they didn't say a word about it in the release notes.
Too bad I updated both, thinking that I'd at least have one device able to sync iMessages to the cloud...
Its a developer beta. You should know how these things work - if its not working up to par, its going to get removed. As a 21 year developer, I've seen major features - even tentpole features - get delayed because in testing they didn't perform up to our standards. Instead of delaying the whole project, you just remove it and put it back in later. Its okay.
You also do know that the betas expire, so you can't keep running on either old iOS or macOS betas hoping to use a problematic feature. And why would you want to keep using a feature that Apple has explicitly removed because it was problematic?
I totally get that. My use case is probably a little different than most and it's my own fault for not having full backups.
For me, iMessages are the only piece of data that I need to worry about backing up - everything else is replaceable somewhere else. That's why the iCloud sync feature was such a godsend. It meant I could finally do a clean install of devices while still preserving my chats.
YMMV of course, but the syncing worked (mostly) flawlessly on my devices so I was using that as a way to keep a master source of message history. You're right that I shouldn't have started relying on a beta feature.
The thing is, once you do an iOS clean install, or your macbook fails to receive some messages, etc... there's no way to merge that message history. iCloud sync is the only possible way at this point to merge iMessage history that is incomplete and scattered across devices.
Unless anyone knows of an open source tool, etc.. I'm all ears.
I have a theory about why is it delayed and probably removed: If iMessages are synced on iCloud, maybe there is a way to acces your iCloud messages from some other device. That would mean: iMessage on Windows and/or Android.
This would be a holly bendition for users. But Apple still wants to get iMessage tight within it's own ecosystem. Although now that iMessage is a complete social and messaging system on it's own, it could mean more money for them if they opened it to other platforms. But also maybe more people in the US could migrate to Android if they can still have iMessage on a cheaper phone.
But that's just a theory (conspiracy maybe). And they just are trying to securely thight iMessage so it can't be accesed anywhere else that's not Apple stuff.
Sad, but it seems true.
