kaolin fire presents :: Magic Messages

A real one, made with the app. Let your eyes relax until the two dots at the bottom drift into three — then hold. A chat bubble is hiding in there.

Show me what’s hidden

Remember Magic Eye? Magic Messages lets you make them. Draw a secret with your finger — or drop in a photo — and it disappears into a shimmering field of dots that looks like pure noise until someone relaxes their eyes and a hidden 3D shape floats up. Then send it, right inside iMessage.

For iPhone & iPad. Free, with one optional colour unlock.

What it does

• Draw with a depth-aware brush — with Apple Pencil, press harder to push a stroke nearer.
• Turn a photo into a hidden picture. Portrait and spatial shots use their real depth; anything else gets depth estimated on-device by AI.
• Send straight from Messages, as an animated shimmer that keeps moving in the conversation.
• Mirror and kaleidoscope symmetry, for patterns that come out satisfying by accident.

Can’t see it?

About one person in twenty can’t free-fuse, and plenty more just need practice. The app has a built-in coach, a Peek button that reveals the answer, a wiggle that shows the shape in motion, and a red/cyan 3D glasses mode — so nobody is left out of the joke.

Support

Questions, bugs, or something it should do? I’d genuinely like to hear it.

Email: kaolin@erif.org

I read everything and usually reply within a few days.

Privacy

Magic Messages collects nothing. No account, no sign-in, no tracking, no analytics, no ads. Every drawing, photo, and stereogram is made and kept on your device — including the AI that reads depth out of a photo, which runs on your phone and never uploads anything. There is no server.

Because nothing is collected, there is nothing to share, sell, or delete.