iCloud Contacts

Last year, my mother-in-law died from cancer. It was an extremely difficult time for everyone in our family, especially my wife, who had spent a lot of time with her in the hospital.

After her death, my father-in-law began using her phone number. When my wife reassigned the number to her dad’s contact, her messages from both of them were merged into a single thread. She wished there was a way to keep them separate, making it easier to view her last conversations with her mom.

This isn’t the only situation where being able to separate chats when a number changes would be helpful. When a friend gets a new number, you end up with separate threads for both the old and new number.

iOS 18 could attempt to solve this by tying message threads to the sender’s contact card or iMessage account. By separating it from the number, users could be given the option to merge threads or keep them separate when editing contacts. Additionally, Apple could let us save or archive threads we’re no longer using but want to keep.