Dear Apple: Add "Disappearing Messages" to iMessage

Control and Ownership of Messages

• Strong divide over who “owns” a message: the sender vs. the recipient’s copy.
• Several commenters dislike unsend/edit and disappearing features because they let the sender retroactively control what the recipient sees, analogous to a book seller remotely altering a purchased ebook.
• Others argue once you send a message, it becomes the recipient’s artifact; taking it back feels like malware or “anti-feature” behavior.

Evidence, Abuse, and Legal Concerns

• Multiple comments emphasize that message histories can be crucial evidence in domestic abuse, harassment, threats, or sexual harassment (e.g., unsolicited explicit photos).
• Disappearing messages risk erasing that evidence from the victim’s phone or making it harder to report.
• Suggested mitigations:
  • Ability to globally opt out or reject disappearing messages.
  • Per-chat settings the recipient controls.
  • Logging of edits/deletions or preventing deletion when a conversation is reported.

Privacy, Threat Models, and Misuse

• Proponents see disappearing/expiring messages as a way to mirror ephemeral, in-person conversations and reduce long-term data exposure or breaches.
• Critics say many “normal” users employ them mainly for nefarious purposes (abuse, threats, unwanted sexual content) and to enable plausible deniability.
• Some view the primary function as enabling lying about what was said.

Storage, Convenience, and Existing iOS Features

• A big real-world use case on other platforms (e.g., WhatsApp) is saving device storage, especially with heavy media in group chats and low-capacity phones.
• iOS already offers global message-retention limits (30 days / 1 year) and tools to bulk-delete large attachments, but these are not per-conversation.
• Some argue “expiring messages” are mostly about auto-cleanup, not secrecy.

Implementation Limits and Reliability

• Many stress that disappearing messages can never be fully trustworthy: screenshots, secondary cameras, and jailbreaks make capture trivial.
• Some suspect Apple avoids advertising a privacy property they can’t truly guarantee.
• iMessage’s fallback to SMS/RCS complicates semantics: only blue-bubble messages could disappear, which could confuse users with mixed threads.

Social and Power Dynamics / iMessage Monopoly

• “Just don’t use it” is challenged: if the feature exists, others (friends, partners, employers) can pressure you into conversations where messages vanish.
• Network effects of iMessage, especially in the US, mean users may have no realistic alternative app, driving calls for Apple to implement the feature carefully—or not at all.