How To Send Birthday Balloons In iMessage

Among the dozens of cute and savvy things you can now do on your iPhone thanks to iOS 10, which launches Sept. 13, is an animated celebratory full screen feature waiting for you in iMessage — the first full screen feature, to be clear. Buckle up, friends, because I'm going to tell you how to send birthday balloons in iMessage and seriously change your birthday text game for good. Because you would have never known you needed something like this, but now that you have it, you won't be able to imagine your boring text life of the past that didn't include a massive birthday balloon shower attached to each congratulatory note.

The addition of animated text deliveries was one of the many new ways the iMessage experience was enhanced. So now, instead of just sending "Happy Birthday" or "Congratulations" with a bunch of emojis and exclamation points, you can send a message that will take over the recipient's entire screen when they read your message. It forces the recipient to stop what they're doing and take a moment to be celebrated — literally stop, because these balloons take over the entire screen!

And most importantly, it's so incredibly easy to use — your new iMessage does all the work for you. Here's how to use the super sweet and celebratory feature when typing "Happy Birthday":

Enter The Phrase

Yes, seriously, just type "Happy Birthday". You can add a name, an emoji, and an exclamation point, just make sure you have those two words.

Hit "Send"

Now all you have to do is wait. Once your recipient opens the text message and it registers as received, the animation will begin!

It Will Look Like This

Balloons everywhere! But just for a few seconds. It's long enough to be cut,e and short enough not to keep the recipient from whatever else they were doing on their phone.

Now, if you want to send balloons without a birthday message, say, to your roommate who finally finished all of her farmer's market produce before it became rotten mush on the fridge floor, you can do this:

Type Any Message

Whatever you want! It doesn't have to be congratulatory or birthday related. Type whatever your heart desires.

Click "More"

Then, before you send, you'll want to click this arrow. This will take you to a page where you can customize how your message appears, manually.

Pick "Screen"

You're looking for a full screen effect, so this is where you'll swipe. You can choose balloons...

Or confetti...

Or fireworks...

Or lasers! Pick whatever you like and send it with flare. Never send a basic text again!

Images: Somkiat Pimlue / EyeEm/EyeEm/Getty Images, Courtesy of Kaitlyn Wylde