Apple is bringing one of iPhone owners' 'most requested' features to text messages

• Texting on your iPhone is about to look a lot more like Slack and email.
• iOS 18 will allow users to schedule text messages to be sent later, Apple announced at WWDC.

Your iPhone is about to get some new features that'll make texting seem a lot more like email or Slack.

Apple's iOS 18 update will come with the ability to schedule text messages to be sent at a later time, it announced Monday at its annual WWDC event. It's among the "most requested" features and can come in handy for things like sending a reminder or remembering to wish a friend happy birthday, Ronak Shah, Apple's director of internet-technologies product marketing, said.

Other capabilities coming to iMessage include text formatting, such as using bolding, italics, strikethrough, or underlining. Apple is also adding emoji and sticker tapbacks you can use to react to a message.

Tapbacks are "one of the most popular ways to express yourself in messages," Shah said.

The emoji and sticker tapbacks go beyond the existing ones, which consist of only a thumbs-up or -down, heart, laugh, exclamation point, and question mark. Those are all getting a design refresh, however.

New text effects, including "shake" and "bloom," are also coming to jazz up your messages. Some will be automatically suggested based on your message, but you can also add any effect to any text.