[m463]

> "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 exposed in the lawsuits made it clear - apple was holding everyone's messages hostage.

What's annoying is that I couldn't save my messages, I could only upgrade to a bigger iphone.

What's downright evil is all the people - I know several - who have lost messages + embedded photos/videos from loved ones who have died because there was no export.

[coldtea]

>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 not as an archive.

[dan-robertson]

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

[dvfjsdhgfv]

> 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.

[m463]

There are probably better links:

https://texasnewsexpress.com/index.php/04162021-1249/apple-r...

[dvfjsdhgfv]

Thanks, that's interesting, I didn't know that. On the one hand, I shouldn't be surprised since vendor lock-in is the standard way tech companies try to gain corporate advantage. On the other hand, it's kind of depressing to learn once again that customers count very little and no matter what these companies say, they will always try to abuse us in every way the law allows.