Apple released the third public beta of iOS 18 on Aug. 6, almost two months after the tech giant announced the software at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June. The beta update brings many new features to the iPhone of developers and beta testers, including ways to customize your home screen and RCS messaging. For people who like a little nuance in their texting, you'll also be able to make your texts stand out with new text effects and formatting options.
Text effects range from bolding your text or making the letters explode across the message. You can also use these effects on a single word or phrase in a message to emphasize what you're saying. Before these effects, all you could do was use all caps on a word or phrase, which is fine in some instances, but sometimes I want to make my words dance on screen because I'm dancing -- poorly -- as I type them.
Read more: An Expert's Guide to the iOS 18 Beta Features
Remember that iOS 18 is still in beta, and I recommend downloading a beta only on something other than your primary device. Because this isn't the final version of iOS 18, the update might be buggy and battery life may be short, and it's best to keep those troubles on a secondary device. To avoid any issues, I downloaded the beta to my old iPhone XR instead of my iPhone 14 Pro.
Note that the beta isn't the final version of iOS 18, so there could be more features to land on your iPhone when iOS 18 is released. Apple said iOS 18 would be released to the public this fall, but there's no definitive date yet.
Here's how you can make your texts as expressive as you are.
How to access text effects
1. Open Messages.
2. Tap into a chat.
3. Tap the text box.
4. Tap the A with dashes on its left side, which can be found above the P on the keyboard.
This opens the text effects menu. Across the top of the menu are the formatting options bold, italics, underline and strike-through. Beneath that are eight different effects: Big, Small, Shake, Nod, Explode, Ripple, Bloom and Jitter.
You can select and use any combination of the formatting options at once, including all together. You can only use one text effect at a time. Text effects also clear any formatting options you may have selected. So you can't bold your message and then use the effect Big -- which causes the message to momentarily balloon in size.
Most of the effects feel like they could be used in a lot of situations, but a few feel well-suited for certain emotions or contexts. Ripple, for example, feels tailor-made for sarcasm, especially when used on a word like "really."
Be aware that if you select formatting options, you have to tap the text box again for your keyboard to return. If you pick a text effect, your keyboard will automatically come back after you tap your desired effect.
Can you use more than one text effect?
You can use multiple effects in a single message, but you can't apply multiple effects to the same word. So you can't use the Big and Shake effects on your entire message, but you can apply Big to part of the message and Shake to the other part of the message. Here's how.
1. Open Messages.
2. Tap into a chat.
3. Tap the text box.
4. Write your message in full.
5. Highlight the word or words you want to add an effect to.
6. Tap the A with dashes on its left side, which can be found above the P on the keyboard.
7. Tap the formatting options or text effect you want to use.
The formatting or text effect will be applied to whatever you highlighted. You can then highlight and apply further formatting or effects to other words in the message. That means you could use all the text effects in a single message if you try hard enough -- I believe in you.
For more on iOS 18, here's my hands-on experience with the iOS 18 public betas, what to know about RCS messaging and our iOS 18 cheat sheet.
Watch this: iOS 18 Hands-On: Exploring the Big Design Changes
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