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Add Custom Backgrounds to Messages in iOS 26
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At this moment, the iOS development team sees your message and says: Just do as the young man said, add background music to SMS text messages in iOS 27.
Looks horrendous.
I'll block anyone who turns in on for our conversations.
I'll block anyone who turns in on for our conversations.
Well animated GIFs already made a comeback years ago so this just helps to complete the cycle.
This is one of the worst bits of design Apple has ever created. Let people change the bubbles and it will look a little less awful. The animated backgrounds need to be thrown out and started over though.
Not being able to choose my own without the other person getting it means I’ll just leave it off. I have friends that will want bright pink backgrounds or skull art or something like that. I want it like WhatsApp where I can set my own background and not affect anyone else.
Can apple make a cross platform multi device messenger application. Like a hybrid of microsoft teams chat, discord, slack, google chat, google docs, and telegram? Apple could make something very innovative.
Apple is struggling to come up with new features. So we are going to get text backgrounds and transparent icons on our Home Screen. I am thinking of waiting for the iPhone 18. Not upgrading will be a first for me.
I'm going to be hard pressed to feel like there's a benefit to upgrading this year (currently have an 16PM).
It is up to you to determine what you want the background to look like. I'm using the feature as a secondary indication that I am texting the correct person. Just the other day I sent a text to my wife that was meant for a friend and she was confused by it. So, now the background on her message thread is her face. My friend is his face. Bonus, on the Vision Pro, the images appear to be about 3 inches behind the thread giving a nice 3D affect that makes the text in the thread stand out better than on flat 2D surfaces (iPhone and Mac).
It isn't the default. You have to set the background image. It gets shared across devices logged into the same Apple account. The background image is associated with your account. As far as I can tell, it isn't shared with others. So there is no way currently for others to see your backgrounds, nor for you to override the backgrounds (or no background) that they choose to use on their devices. For instance, my thread with my wife has her picture as a background. It would make no sense for her to see her own picture on a messages thread with me. She can set whatever background she wants.
Phew! Thanks for clarifying and so glad that backgrounds don’t change for other people’s devices.
I hope that’s the case and it’s not just a bug that yours isn’t sharing it, because Apple specifically says it does get shared:
“When you select a background, it appears for everyone in the conversation to enjoy.”
Unless they already changed the behaviour due to beta feedback 🤔
Everything I've read about this suggests the background is shared into the chat. However, they need to be running iOS 26 (or higher, when that happens).
Same here. It will be the first time I did not upgrade but my 16PM is still working great with 100% battery capacity. Sound like the 18 is going to be the real upgrade.
Yikes! I hope that’s not true. It is a misfeature if it is. I think I’m going to have to do more testing. If it does share, I will definitely provide hugely negative feedback.
Is it confirmed that this changes the look of the chat on all participant's devices? If so, this sounds like something I'm going to hate. Please let there be an option to turn it off locally.