Emoji

How to use emoji like a pro in Messages for iPhone and iPad

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 28, 2016

Your expressive Messages app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch packs in some interesting and useful features related to emojis. For added impact, emojis can be made three times their normal size.

But that's not all.

Apple's stock QuickType keyboard now recommends emojis as you type and Messages has a cool emojification feature where you tap words to turn them into appropriate emoji characters.

We're going to take you through all emoji-related features in Messages for iOS and teach you how to use them. Are you ready to boost your emoji game?

Ryan Petrich’s new Emojiant tweak enables iOS 10-like giant Emojis in iOS 9

Anthony Bouchard ∙ August 4, 2016

One of the newer features that you can expect in iOS 10 this Fall is the ability to send larger Emojis to the people you're talking to.

If you're jailbroken on iOS 9, and you don't feel like waiting for iOS 10, you can get a similar feature on your device right now, compliments of a new jailbreak tweak from Ryan Petrich called Emojiant.

Apple adding more than 100 gender diverse emoji in iOS 10

Cody Lee ∙ Updated May 1, 2018

Apple is adding more than 100 new and redesigned emoji characters in iOS 10, the company said in a press release on Monday. The new emoji are accessible in the latest beta—iOS 10 beta 4—which was released to registered developers this morning.

The focus of the additions is gender diversity. So characters that previously only featured men options, such as the cyclist, swimmer and construction worker, are now available for both men and women, and likewise for previous women-only emoji.

Meet Swiftmoji, SwiftKey’s new emoji-predicting keyboard

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

A new emoji-predicting keyboard from Microsoft-owned SwiftKey, called Swiftmoji, launched on the App Store.

Available at no charge on the App Store, it boosts your emoji game by predicting a wall of suggested emojis based on crowdsourced data, the user's own preferences and the actual text written in any of the user's keyboards.

This ability to get perfect emoji predictions based on what you’ve just typed is similar to Apple's much-improved QuickType keyboard on iOS 10.

Apple launches downloadable iMessage sticker packs for iOS 10

Anthony Bouchard ∙ July 2, 2016

Apple on Friday released four sets of sticker packs for iOS 10 that can be downloaded from the App Store and used in the new Messages app that Apple demonstrated at the WWDC 2016 keynote.

Each of the packs are free to download and include animated stickers that behave much like those in Facebook Messenger do when they're sent to the recipient.

Enjoy the new Unicode 9.0 emojis on iOS right now with a simple workaround

Anthony Bouchard ∙ June 25, 2016

Many of you probably already heard the news that Unicode 9.0 became official this week and that there were going to be 72 new emojis coming soon.

Although Apple is likely to add support for these new emojis in iOS 10 in a future beta or release update, they're not yet available in iOS whatsoever, but in this tutorial, we'll show you how you can still use them without a jailbreak on a completely stock device.

WhatsApp is about to get a whole lot better

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 22, 2016

Facebook-owned WhatsApp has some notable improvements in the pipeline, including support for large emoji characters, all-new public groups, the ability to share locally stored tracks and Apple Music songs with friends and family, deeper Facebook integration, profile codes, stickers and multi-account support, to name a few.

But we're just getting started.

Unicode 9.0 goes official with 72 new emojis

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 22, 2016

The Unicode Consortium, the organization which develops the Unicode standard that specifies the representation of text in all modern software, officially announced Unicode 9.0, the next major revision to the Unicode standard.

The Unicode 9.0 specification is now available to vendors with 7,500 new characters for a total of 128,172 characters, including six new scripts and 72 new emoji characters.

Here are the 72 new emojis you’ll be able to use soon

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated August 2, 2017

The Unicode Consortium has settled on a batch of new emoji characters that will become part of the Unicode 9.0 standard, to be released formally on June 21. The final emoji candidates for inclusion in Unicode 9.0 include such emoji as a man in tuxedo, lying face, clown face, drooling face, nauseated face, rolling on the floor laughing, selfie, face palm, pregnant woman, first place medal, shopping trolley, deer, shark, owl, potato, croissant, pancakes, bacon, judo uniform and more.

Facebook has added over 1,500 new emoji characters to Messenger

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 2, 2016

Facebook announced yesterday that it's adding more than 1,500 new emoji to its free mobile Messenger app, bringing a lot more diversity to your communications.

Underscoring that emojis have changed the way we talk to each other, “from skin tones that you can choose to lots of women in great roles”, the post reveals that nearly ten percent of mobile sends in Messenger include emojis.

Tip: using emojis in iOS Spotlight Search

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 24, 2016

iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users can use emoji as search terms in Spotlight Search to some rather interesting effects. It's unclear when this feature was added or activated.

That being said, bringing up iOS's built-in Emoji keyboard to type an emoji in Spotlight's search field will produce matching results related to the character's meaning, as highlighted by Cult of Mac.

Google launches iPhone keyboard that lets you search and send GIFs, emojis and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 12, 2016

As promised, Google this morning launched its first software keyboard for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, called Gboard. Available free on the App Store, it integrates the power of Google Search, supports gesture-based typing, lets you send GIFs, emoticons and more. “No more app switching; just search and send, right from your keyboard,” said Google.