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Mr D

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 11, 2007
349
179
Just venting here -

Apple needs to do something with scrolling up in conversations and being able to search the complete history of all your messages.

It is ridiculous that only a small portion of my conversation is available to view - and if I want to go back further I have to constantly wait for it to load.

And it's even more ridiculous I can't search the complete history of all my messages.

I'm sure this has something to do with optimizing to speed of the app and phone ... But this is just terrible.
 

beernut

macrumors 6502
Jan 13, 2016
400
243
you mean you can't find the search function (at the very top of Messages) or you can search but the search results don't include really really old messages?
 

dk001

macrumors demi-god
Oct 3, 2014
11,136
15,488
Sage, Lightning, and Mountains
Yes. This is a known issue (I have submitted a report to Apple a bit back).
Example: search for a specific term (say my grand-daughters name). I get the entries from back to December 2015 but prior entries (say Oct 2015) do not show up in search. If I manually search in the entries I can find them.
 

mconk

macrumors 6502
Mar 10, 2009
371
69
Virginia
I understand the frustration. I personally don't delete my iMessages. Some threads, if I were to sit and tap on the time to scroll up, I could quite literally sit and tap for days on end just to get to the very first message. It would be nice to have some sort of way to easily access certain time periods of a message thread. Spotlight, and even iMessage search bars will only pull relevant results to however far back you've managed to tap back into any given thread. So if I'm looking for something that was said months ago in one specific iMessage thread, search won't find it unless I specifically sit and tap to scroll up to load, and repeat. I'm thinking something like time machine for iMessage search. They've already figured out an easier way of managing attachments and media within the threads...seems like a logical next step considering how text centric most people are these days. I submit a feature request.
 

KALLT

macrumors 603
Sep 23, 2008
5,380
3,415
I understand the frustration. I personally don't delete my iMessages. Some threads, if I were to sit and tap on the time to scroll up, I could quite literally sit and tap for days on end just to get to the very first message. It would be nice to have some sort of way to easily access certain time periods of a message thread. Spotlight, and even iMessage search bars will only pull relevant results to however far back you've managed to tap back into any given thread. So if I'm looking for something that was said months ago in one specific iMessage thread, search won't find it unless I specifically sit and tap to scroll up to load, and repeat. I'm thinking something like time machine for iMessage search. They've already figured out an easier way of managing attachments and media within the threads...seems like a logical next step considering how text centric most people are these days. I submit a feature request.

It's definitely haphazard presently. You can search for keywords within your messages, but you can't actually locate content this way. Regardless how Apple intended it, with lots of space available and Spotlight built-in, there is no excuse why this shouldn't be possible. Sometimes you have to adjust your software to accommodate changed user behaviour.
 
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dk001

macrumors demi-god
Oct 3, 2014
11,136
15,488
Sage, Lightning, and Mountains
It's definitely haphazard presently. You can search for keywords within your messages, but you can't actually locate content this way. Regardless how Apple intended it, with lots of space available and Spotlight built-in, there is no excuse why this shouldn't be possible. Sometimes you have to adjust your software to accommodate changed user behaviour.

Biggest reason that iMessage is not my current primary messaging app. It is missing this vital function.
 

Mr D

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 11, 2007
349
179
while he's at it, should probably report he has to wait for the phone to power on too, should be instant..:p

sorry cant help myself. this thread is funny:D

What's so funny? iOS is the only OS that does this. iMessage saves around 50-60 messages from what I just counted and everything else has to be loaded. And depending on length of those messages, it will be significantly smaller...and/or if there are images.

It's 2016, if you're ok with lower standards when buying a premium product, then THAT is funny.

you mean you can't find the search function (at the very top of Messages) or you can search but the search results don't include really really old messages?

You can't search messages that are not already preloaded. Really really old means nothing because it is relative.
[doublepost=1453425126][/doublepost]
back in nokia 3315 days, you had to delete the history after like 2 days cos there wasnt enough memory on the phone.

so funny to see the complaints of 2016.

"i have to wait 1 second for my iPhone to load text history, then i have to scroll again" hahaha the struggle is real

You obviously have no idea what I'm talking about. If it was just ONCE that I had to wait, then it isn't a big deal. But if you have long conversations with someone, or you need to look way back in a conversation that happens to be long (maybe for an ADDRESS, or to CITE something?) - then it is ridiculous that you can't search for it, and ridiculous about how long it takes to scroll up.

AND, if you're scrolling and you receive a message or if you accidentally leave the screen or tap a spot to bring you back own to recent messages, it'll bring you all the way back down to the current message and you have to repeat this process.

You must have no idea about this issue.
[doublepost=1453425274][/doublepost]
I understand the frustration. I personally don't delete my iMessages. Some threads, if I were to sit and tap on the time to scroll up, I could quite literally sit and tap for days on end just to get to the very first message. It would be nice to have some sort of way to easily access certain time periods of a message thread. Spotlight, and even iMessage search bars will only pull relevant results to however far back you've managed to tap back into any given thread. So if I'm looking for something that was said months ago in one specific iMessage thread, search won't find it unless I specifically sit and tap to scroll up to load, and repeat. I'm thinking something like time machine for iMessage search. They've already figured out an easier way of managing attachments and media within the threads...seems like a logical next step considering how text centric most people are these days. I submit a feature request.

Search STILL won't find it because the moment you leave iMessages, all the messages/text you had to manually load up won't be available in the search query anymore.
 
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lagwagon

Suspended
Oct 12, 2014
3,899
2,759
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
What's so funny? iOS is the only OS that does this. iMessage saves around 50-60 messages from what I just counted and everything else has to be loaded. And depending on length of those messages, it will be significantly smaller...and/or if there are images.

It's 2016, if you're ok with lower standards when buying a premium product, then THAT is funny.

Messages does this to save time while loading a conversation. If it had to load an entire 1, 2, 3, 4 year conversation in its entirety every time you launched, it would slow things down and also increase the total amount RAM Messages would consume at all times when ran. It's much more efficient this way.
 
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-BigMac-

macrumors 68020
Apr 15, 2011
2,490
2,833
Melbourne, Australia
You obviously have no idea what I'm talking about. If it was just ONCE that I had to wait, then it isn't a big deal. But if you have long conversations with someone, or you need to look way back in a conversation that happens to be long (maybe for an ADDRESS, or to CITE something?) - then it is ridiculous that you can't search for it, and ridiculous about how long it takes to scroll up.

AND, if you're scrolling and you receive a message or if you accidentally leave the screen or tap a spot to bring you back own to recent messages, it'll bring you all the way back down to the current message and you have to repeat this process.
.

I know exactly the 'problem' you are refering to, having been an iPhone user since the very first iPhone, and every generation since.

Apple would implement a different method if it was of thorough daily use by a majority of the users.

Simply put 99% of the time a user opens up their messages app, they will just use it to read the last few texts, and reply. They dont browse the whole history of texts with that person everytime they get a message from them.

Why in that case, would they load the whole text/imessage conversation of each person, from beginning of time, when a vast majority of the time all it will do is severely slow the loading time of said conversation, so they can send a 2 word text reply.

Your usage of the messages app would classify as an outlier to the masses.

And when you do find yourself needing such history searching, a couple seconds is nothing compared to the overall sluggishness and lag which loading the entire history of texts, photos, videos, voice messages would cause if it was to load the history every time.

Hope that answers your thread in enough detail :)
 

Mr D

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 11, 2007
349
179
Messages does this to save time while loading a conversation. If it had to load an entire 1, 2, 3, 4 year conversation in its entirety every time you launched, it would slow things down and also increase the total amount RAM Messages would consume at all times when ran. It's much more efficient this way.

I know exactly the 'problem' you are refering to, having been an iPhone user since the very first iPhone, and every generation since.

Apple would implement a different method if it was of thorough daily use by a majority of the users.

Simply put 99% of the time a user opens up their messages app, they will just use it to read the last few texts, and reply. They dont browse the whole history of texts with that person everytime they get a message from them.

Why in that case, would they load the whole text/imessage conversation of each person, from beginning of time, when a vast majority of the time all it will do is severely slow the loading time of said conversation, so they can send a 2 word text reply.

Your usage of the messages app would classify as an outlier to the masses.

And when you do find yourself needing such history searching, a couple seconds is nothing compared to the overall sluggishness and lag which loading the entire history of texts, photos, videos, voice messages would cause if it was to load the history every time.

Hope that answers your thread in enough detail :)

It's obvious for the reason behind this.

However - I know it is completely unacceptable to not even be able to search all your messages.

If Apple didn't feel like this was an issue - they would have never implemented the ability to view all images dating back to the beginning of the conversation thread.

Why do images load faster than messages? Why is it that I can scroll all the way down the images before they load - yet I have to wait for each block of text to load before continuing to scroll up?

At some point you can't keep saying RAM is an issue if you're increasing RAM.

At worst - I should be able to put in a date range and have the messages load all the messages through that range - or to a certain date - in one single load.

You sit here and talk about majority of users yet I can think about features that a majority of users don't ever use. That isn't the point and that is small minded thinking - which goes back to my initial statement about your lower standards.
 
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dk001

macrumors demi-god
Oct 3, 2014
11,136
15,488
Sage, Lightning, and Mountains
It's obvious for the reason behind this.

However - I know it is completely unacceptable to not even be able to search all your messages.

If Apple didn't feel like this was an issue - they would have never implemented the ability to view all images dating back to the beginning of the conversation thread.

Why do images load faster than messages? Why is it that I can scroll all the way down the images before they load - yet I have to wait for each block of text to load before continuing to scroll up?

At some point you can't keep saying RAM is an issue if you're increasing RAM.

At worst - I should be able to put in a date range and have the messages load all the messages through that range - or to a certain date - in one single load.

You sit here and talk about majority of users yet I can think about features that a majority of users don't ever use. That isn't the point and that is small minded thinking - which goes back to my initial statement about your lower standards.

Why can't we have an option to store all messages locally?
 

C DM

macrumors Sandy Bridge
Oct 17, 2011
51,392
19,461
I wonder... the search behavior indicates otherwise.
If yes (stored locally), then the OS must be doing some kind of cache only search or archiving local messages or...
Searching messages is a pain.
Likely difference between what's loaded in RAM and what's in storage (and perhaps how that is all indexed as well).
 
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