Apple may add some text effects to iMessage in iOS 18

Apple's changes to iMessage in iOS 18 could introduce new text effects, which may include stylized text that could be sent to Android users.

Users of iMessage will be familiar with the way the app handles certain words within a message. Existing options include key words like Happy Birthday triggering balloons, as well as other effects that can be sent by users.

With the inbound iOS 18, Apple stands to increase the number of ways users can creatively send messages to each other. According to a report on Friday by MacRumors, more are on the way.

The new text effects will let users animate individual words within a sentence, the report claims.

There is currently no option to format text in that way in iMessage for iOS 17, and effects are limited to whole-window impacts like fireworks and so forth. While not detailed in the post, it seems logical that this could expand into formatting offered by other messaging platforms, such as bold, italics, and underline text options.

As well as sending more enhanced messages to other iPhone users, there is a chance that the effects could be made to work with Android users. Apple previously confirmed RCS would arrive on iOS in 2024, which may enable the effects to reach across platforms.

RCS and more effects aren't the only things that could arrive on iMessage in iOS 18. As part of Apple's AI work, iMessage could generate images from a user prompt and then have them sent off to contacts.