iOS 10 tidbit: auto-playing full-screen effects in Messages for texts like “Happy Birthday”

iOS 10 Messages auto full screen effects Happy Birthday silver iPhone screenshot 001

iOS 10’s Messages app offers a number of new features and meaningful improvements, such as bubble effects, smarter emoji, full-screen animations and so forth. Moreover, iOS 10 turns Messages into a software platform of its own with support for third-party iMessage Apps, stickers and other downloadable items via the App Store.

We previously covered various Messages capabilities on iOS 10, like Spotlight Suggestions in chats, using Digital Touch to send animated kisses and broken hearts, managing read-receipts on a per-chat basis, to mention just a few. Today, we take a look at another cool Messages feature: the ability to automatically play appropriate full-screen effects based on certain messages.

“Happy Birthday!” now looks a lot nicer

The iOS 10 Messages app lets you send messages with one of its built-in full-screen animations for added impact: Balloons, Confetti, Lasers, Fireworks and Shooting Star. What you may not be aware of is that Messages will automatically play one of these animations based on the contents of the texts you receive.

Should you receive a message saying “Happy Birthday!”, Messages will render the text using the Balloon full-screen effect. Another example: receiving a “Happy New Year!” message will automatically invoke the Fireworks effect. Similarly, if you receive ”Congrats!” in a message, the app will use the Confetti animation.

And because iOS is localized in many languages, these auto-playing full-screen effects kick into action no matter the language. For example, here’s “Happy Birthday” in Croatian, my mother tongue, German and Japanese.

iOS 10 Messages auto full screen effects Happy Birthday silver iPhone screenshot 002

For those wondering, iOS 10 beta doesn’t seem to provide a switch to optionally turn off this feature, but things may change as we get closer to the official release date.

Hat tip goes to iDownloadBlog reader Mark A.

For more goodies like this one, see our iOS 10 Preview and iOS 10 Tidbits series.

Video walkthrough: Messages on iOS 10

As the most-frequently used stock app, Messages is being advertised as one of iOS 10’s tentpole features. With iOS 10, Apple wants to make Messages even more expressive and fun while enabling third-party developers to leverage the power of iOS Extensions to build downloadable stickers, bubble effects, full-screen animations and more.

For more information, read our complete preview of Messages on iOS 10.

iDB previews Apple’s latest OS updates

Check out the following previews:

iOS 10

macOS Sierra

watchOS 3

tvOS 10

Additional previews will be added to these lists as they’re published. If you’d like future coverage to focus on other features, email us at tips@idownloadblog.com. We’ll take any reasonable suggestions into consideration.

iOS 10 availability

iOS 10 released as a developer-only preview to members of the Apple Developer Program in June. In July, it was made available to public beta testers who are signed on the Apple Beta Software Program. The operating system will release for public consumption as a free update for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch this fall.

System requirements for iOS 10 are same as those for iOS 9, with the exception of iPhone 4s, original iPad mini and iPad 2 which are are no longer supported.

Your $0.02 on auto-play full-screen effects in Message

How do you like these auto-playing full-screen effects in Messages based on the contents of your chats? Is this a cool feature or a nuisance, do you think? Should Apple give us a switch in Settings to turn this feature on and off?

Let your voice be heard in the comment section below!