Invisible ink for iPhone and iOS 10: Users spot a new issue with hidden messages

Invisible ink is one of the most popular features on Apple's iOS 10 for iPhone and iPad, but it's still a little buggy. 

How to use invisible ink

Invisible ink is a new feature that lets you send scrambled-looking texts and blurred photos. The images and words are temporarily obscured until you swipe your finger over the message. Then they're visible for a moment before getting scrambled again. 

Unfortunately, iPhone users have noticed a problem that temporarily makes it impossible to see your invisible ink photos. 

Don't get too worried, though. There's a simple fix. 

The invisible ink photo problem

The glitch happens when you've sent or received a photo message using invisible ink and you swipe over — just partially — to see your other texts. Once you return to the invisible ink message, it's temporarily disabled and you can't swipe it anymore. Confused? Here's what swiping partway looks like (we've blurred out the texts for privacy):

Once you've swiped back, your invisible ink photo message looks static and obscured. Instead of the normal swirling dots, your image is just blurry. 

We tested it out, and the glitch happens with invisible ink images you've both sent and received. It doesn't, however, affect invisible ink text messages. As you can see below, invisible ink text messages stay swirly even when photos go static. 

So what's an iOS 10 user to do?

How to fix invisible ink problems

Thankfully, the problem is simple to remedy. All you have to do is swipe out of the glitchy conversation and back into it, and you should be good to go.

If you've upgraded to iOS 10 and you're unable to send invisible ink messages, there's an easy fix for that too. We've got you covered.