If you’ve been feverishly checking the news every day to see what to expect from WWDC 2025, especially in terms of iOS 26 features, well there’s some more news for you. Following a report from Mark Gurman who announced that Apple will add a new custom-background feature to the Messages app, Nicolás Alvarez on X (formerly Twitter), has said that the Messages app will allow users to create custom backgrounds with simple text-based prompting.
The feature will use Apple Intelligence’s Image Playground, and it will also reportedly support the image style options as seen in Image Playground already. This means you will likely be able to generate iMessage backgrounds in styles such as sketch, illustration, and animation.
Custom Backgrounds in iOS 26 Messages App
Further, Apple will let users set custom backgrounds for specific conversations, which means you can customize your chat background in iMessage for each individual person. The backgrounds will also reportedly sync across participants in conversations.
Custom backgrounds isn’t the only new feature apparently coming to Messages. Earlier, we reported that iOS 26 will bring a polls feature in Messages. Well, it seems that alongside polls, Apple is also bringing in a new Genmoji-style feature called “Mixmoji” which will allow users to create a new emoji by mixing two existing emojis.
Toasty Take
Custom backgrounds aren’t a new idea by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, most chat apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, Messenger, etc., have had this feature for years. However, coming late to the party isn’t exactly out of style for Apple, so it’s not very surprising to see the company adding in such features now.
As for Mixmoji, I don’t expect them to be any more popular than Genmoji. And by that, I mean that you’ll create Mixmoji for a few days and spam your friends with them, laugh about some silly things you make, and then never use the feature again (except once in a blue moon when there’s a need for a very specific emoji).
Either way, both the custom backgrounds and the Mixmoji feature seem very much like novelties. Still, iOS 26 is shaping up to be an interesting upgrade, and I for one, can’t wait to watch WWDC 2025.
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