Apple has introduced all new reaction gestures for FaceTime on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, meaning if you make certain hand gestures, symbols, or movements, you will trigger a digital effect reaction. For example, if you make a thumbs up gesture with your hand, a thumbs up emoji will appear on the screen, or if you make a peace sign, you’ll trigger balloons effects on the screen.
Many of these reaction gesture triggers and effects work in FaceTime video calls, but also Zoom video conferences, and some other video chat apps too.
FaceTime Reaction Gestures and Their Effects
The FaceTime reaction gestures and their associated effects are as follows:
- Thumbs up – thumbs up displayed on screen as emoji
- Thumbs down – thumbs down emoji displayed on screen
- Two thumbs up – fireworks effect
- Two thumbs down – cloud effect
- Peace sign with one hand – balloons effect
- Peace sign with two hands – confetti effect
- Heart shape using both hands, like this emoji ???? – heart emoji appears on screen
- Rock on sign with both hands, like this ???????? – laser effect
You can also access all of these reaction effects in FaceTime and Zoom through the app and menu options, but the gesture recognition is new, and kind of fun to play around with.
Try these gesture out the next time you’re on a video chat, or a video conference, or a meeting.
Note that on the Mac, you will need macOS Sonoma 14.0 or later on an Apple Silicon Mac or better, why it’s not available for Intel Macs is a mystery but that’s the way it is and Apple likely wants to encourage Mac users to upgrade to their Apple Silicon architecture with amazing new features like this. For iPhone and iPad, you must have iOS 17 or newer, or iPadOS 17 or newer, to have access to this feature.
Will you be using FaceTime reaction gestures on your video calls and video chats? Are you thrilled to do two thumbs up on a video chat and have fireworks activate for everyone to see? Let us know what you think of these features in the comments.
