You open a new message on your iPhone when suddenly balloons and confetti invade your phone screen. Rest assured, this is not a virus but one of the many animated effects of iMessage. Here's how to use them..
Add an effect to one of your messages
Since the appearance of iOS 10 in 2016, Apple's messaging application offers various text effects to animate your messages. There is something for every taste. It goes from the fireworks, passing by the rain of confetti and obviously the release of balloons. Guaranteed kitsch effect.
But as you know the tastes and the colors, that cannot be discussed. Obviously some will find this too much. But these small animations are mainly used to wish a happy birthday to a friend or to congratulate him on a happy event..
To use these effects, you must first create a message and then choose the animation of your choice from the list of options in iMessage. Please note, this only works on iOS. Concretely this means that if you send a message to a friend who has an Android (green bubble for SMS), he will not be able to see the animation.
Before you start, be aware that there are two types of iMessage effects. Bubble effects and full screen effects. The first will be content to modify the text contained in the bubble of your message (swirl, blur, etc.). The second will cover the screen with all kinds of animations (confetti, fireworks, laser, shooting star, giant red heart, balloons)..
Keywords causing iMessage's full screen effects
Certain animations are triggered automatically when you send a specific word or expression. In this guide, you will find the list of keywords or phrases that will automatically trigger full screen animations in the iMessage application.
- Happy birthday triggers balloons effect
- If you send Happy New Year by SMS, your friend's screen will be covered with fireworks
- The word congratulations will cause the appearance of a rain of confetti
- Try adding pew pew to your next SMS. Your correspondent risks seeing laser beams appear
You can test these effects, by sending a message to yourself. To do this, you will need to create a new message and then enter your mobile phone number in the address field. Effects are triggered automatically when the message is received.
Manually setting an effect to a message
Your message will not contain any of the terms mentioned above? It does not matter. As you will be able to see, it is quite easy to add a bubble effect or a full screen effect to one of your messages.
- Open the iMessage app
- Write your message in the field provided
- Keep your finger pressed on the small blue arrow used for sending messages
- Press the screen tab at the top of the window
- Slide your finger from right to left to cycle through the different effects
- Echo: makes copies of your message appear
- Projector: highlights the content of your message
- Balloon: a release of multicolored balloons
- Confetti: a rain of confetti falls from the top of your screen
- Love: a giant red heart
- Laser: a multicolored laser beam illuminates your screen
- Fake fireworks: the screen goes black and colorful fireworks fill the screen
- Shooting star
- Celebration: a shower of golden sparks covers your screen
Once you have made your choice, click on the blue arrow to send your message. If you have not found the effect you are looking for, press the little gray cross to exit the effects menu. Now let's see the bubble effects.
- Click on the bubble tab in the iMessage application
- Impact: the message of agitation in all directions
- LED: vibrates your text for a few seconds
- Discreet: reduce the size of your text before returning to its normal size
- Invisible ink: the message becomes completely blurred
The effects of iMessage are a great way to create some animation around your messages. Be careful not to abuse it too much. In the long run it may tire your friends and loved ones.
Besides, Apple has understood this and offers an option to deactivate the automatic playback of iMessage effects.
- Open iPhone settings
- Click on general then on accessibility
- Press the switch button to activate the reduce animation function
Bubble effects and full screen effects are now blocked. To manually read iMessage animations, simply click on the icon below the message.