There are a lot of options and effects on your iPhone 13 that you might want to enable or disable. Some of them involve things that are really obvious, like the keyboard clicks or the lock sounds, while others will only present themselves on very rare or specific occasions.
One of these settings involves animations that will play when you send certain text messages on certain days. For example, sending the message “Happy Birthday” can cause a full-screen display of balloons if you send it to another Apple iMessage user.
But if you have sent one of these messages and you didn’t see the balloons, then you might want to enable it.
You can turn on text message effects on the iPhone 13 by going to Settings > Accessibility > Motion > Auto-Play Text Message Effects.
Once this option is turned on you will start to see the various effects and animations that have been added to the Messages app.
If you want to see it right away, you can always send a text to yourself, which will display the associated animation.
Our article continues below with more information on this feature, as well as expanded instructions for how to turn it on or off.
How to Turn on the Birthday and Holiday Effects for iPhone 13 Text Messages
- Open Settings.
- Choose Accessibility.
- Touch Motion.
- Tap Auto-Play Text Message Effects.
Our guide continues below with additional information on turning on the iPhone’s text message effects setting.
How to Enable or Disable iPhone 13 Text Message Effects (Guide with Pictures)
The steps in this article were performed on an iPhone 13 in the iOS 15.4.1 operating system, but will also work on other iPhone models using iOS 15, as well as several earlier versions of iOS.
Wondering if there’s an easier way to save account credentials? Our how to save passwords on iPhone 13 tutorial will show you an option.
Step 1: Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Step 2: Scroll down and select the Accessibility option.
Step 3: Choose the Motion option.
Step 4: Tap the button to the right of Auto-Play Text Message Effects.
Our tutorial continues below with additional discussion about the iPhone’s holiday iMessage effects, as well as the other options on this menu.
More Information on the iMessage Balloons, Confetti, Etc. in iPhone Text Messages
You will receive these text message effects when this setting is turned on, and the message is sent as an iMessage. In fact, you will also see the effects if you send the message to someone else.
The other options that you see on the Motion screen of the Accessibility menu include:
- Reduce Motion – If you turn this on then a lot of the animations and motion that are part of iOS will be disabled, as well as the parallax effect of the icons. This is a setting that is often recommended as one to disable when you are trying to preserve battery life, as it isn’t technically important. It’s more for aesthetics than anything else.
- Auto-Play Video Previews – You can turn this option off if you would like to stop video previews from playing automatically in the default Apple apps and in other apps that have elected to tie this feature into their own apps.
Additional Sources
Matthew Burleigh has been writing technology how-to articles and tutorials for over a decade. He has extensive experience in information technology both in small business and as a consultant.
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