Which is why I wrote "idiot-proof". Things such as "encrypted backup" and "server side" are difficult to parse when I'm under the pressure of changing a phone. Plus, Apple has a bad enough reputation as it is (with cloud / syncing). I want my old texts to reappear magically without having to know these complicated sounding concepts. GMail does that. GText would if Google created it along similar lines.

It would be nice to have an option to move them between phones without relying on restoring the iTunes or iCloud backup of a previous device. I just got my new 7+ on Thursday and as with every new device I get I was keen to just start from a clean slate (my home screen on my 6+ was a mess and instead of cleaning it up I just decided it would be easier to start from square one, all my photos were already on my iCloud photo library and all my music on Apple Music) - annoyingly enough while a large chunk of my core experience was migrated over messages were not.

Now, considering iMessage uses E2E encryption and they don't store any of this data outside of your iCloud backup I'm not shocked, but considering I already get notified that iMessage was set up on another device and the public key is sent to Apple so new messages can be encrypted with it I don't see why my existing device couldn't just "catch-up" the new one like Skype used to do before they moved message history server-side.