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←Created page with '{{about|the technical implementation of emojis by various platforms and vendors||emoji}} The '''implementation of emojis''' on different platforms took place across a three-decade period, starting in the 1990s. Today, the exact appearance of emoji is not prescribed but can vary between fonts and platforms, much like different typeface. Historically, this wasn't the case and emojis were sent as prefixed graphics. For example, the Apple Color Emoj...'
 
m Discospinster moved page Implementation of Emojis to Implementation of emojis: capitalization
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Revision as of 15:51, 9 September 2021

This article is about the technical implementation of emojis by various platforms and vendors. For other uses, see emoji.

The implementation of emojis on different platforms took place across a three-decade period, starting in the 1990s. Today, the exact appearance of emoji is not prescribed but can vary between fonts and platforms, much like different typeface. Historically, this wasn't the case and emojis were sent as prefixed graphics.

For example, the Apple Color Emoji typeface is proprietary to Apple, and can only be used on Apple devices (without additional hacking).[1] Different computing companies have developed their own fonts to display emoji, some of which have been open-sourced to permit their reuse.[2][3] Both color and monochrome emoji typefaces exist, as well as at least one animated design.[4]

Implementation by different platforms

Google (Android and Chrome OS)

Google's Noto fonts project includes the Noto Color Emoji font, which supplies color glyphs for emoji characters.[5] Chrome OS, through its inclusion of the Noto fonts, supports the emoji set introduced through Unicode 6.2. As of Chrome OS 41, Noto Color Emoji is the default font for most emoji.

Android devices support emoji differently depending on the operating system version. Google added native emoji support to Android in July 2013 with Android 4.3,[6] and to the Google Keyboard in November 2013 for devices running Android 4.4 and later.[7] Android 7.0 Nougat added Unicode 9 emoji, skin tone modifiers, and a redesign of many existing emoji.[8]

Emoji are also supported by the Google Hangouts application (independent of the keyboard in use), in both Hangouts and SMS modes.[9] Several third-party messaging and keyboard applications (such as IQQI Keyboard) for Android devices[10] provide plugins that allow the use of emoji. With Android 8 (Oreo), Google added a compatibility library that, if included by app developers, makes the latest Noto emoji available on any platform since Android 4.3.[11]

Stock Android systems include the Noto glyphs for emoji characters, although individual social media apps may use their own glyphs instead.[12] However, mobile phone vendors HTC and LG deployed variants of NotoColorEmoji.ttf with custom glyphs prior to 2017,[13] and Samsung still does.[14] Some Japanese mobile carriers used to equip branded Android devices with emoji glyphs that were closer to the original ones, but apparently have stopped updating these circa 2015.[clarification needed]

Apple

Apple first introduced emoji to their desktop operating system with the release of OS X 10.7 Lion, in 2011. Users can view emoji characters sent through email and messaging applications, which are commonly shared by mobile users, as well as any other application. Users can create emoji symbols using the "Characters" special input panel from almost any native application by selecting the "Edit" menu and pulling down to "Special Characters", or by the key combination ⌘ Command+⌥ Option+T. Users can also create these symbols by switching the keyboard to Unicode, holding ⌥ Option and typing the Unicode hex input. For example, holding down ⌥ Option+2+6+3+A would create ☺. The desktop OS uses the Apple Color Emoji font that was introduced earlier in iOS. This provides users with full color pictographs.[15]

The emoji keyboard was first available in Japan with the release of iPhone OS version 2.2 in 2008.[16] The emoji keyboard was not officially made available outside of Japan until iOS version 5.0.[17] From iPhone OS 2.2 through to iOS 4.3.5 (2011), those outside Japan could access the keyboard but had to use a third party app to enable it. The first of such apps was developed by Josh Gare; emoji beginning to be embraced by popular culture outside Japan has been attributed to these apps.[18][19] iOS was updated to support Fitzpatrick skin-tone modifiers with version 8.3.[20]

OS X 10.9 Mavericks introduced a dedicated emoji input palette in most text input boxes within the Mac's existing Character Viewer using the key combination ⌘ Command+Ctrl+Space.[21] Optionally, the Fn key alone can be specified by the user in the keyboard preferences menu to bring up the Character Viewer. Since macOS Big Sur, the key is also labeled as 🌐 (globe) for consistency across macOS and iOS, which uses the globe key as a function key to switch to the emoji and other chosen international keyboard layouts.

Apple has revealed that the "face with tears of joy" is the most popular emoji among English speaking Americans. On second place is the "heart" emoji followed by the "Loudly Crying Face".[22][23]

On July 17, 2018, for the World Emoji Day, Apple announced that it will be adding 70 more emoji in its 2018 iOS update, including the long-awaited, red hair, white hair, curly hair and bald emoji.[24][25]

On September 12, 2017, Apple announced that the Messages app on the iPhones with Face ID would get "Animoji", which are versions of standard emoji that are custom-animated with the use of facial motion capture to reflect the sender's expressions. These Animoji can also utilize lip sync to appear to speak audio messages recorded by the sender. Apple had created 3D models of all standard emoji prior to its late-2016 OS updates from which the static default 2D graphics had been rendered. A select set of these models are being reused for creating still images and short animations dynamically.

With the release of iOS 13, Apple introduced "Memoji" that allows the use of an avatar that a user can use to personalize messages; this feature does not require Face ID.[26]

Linux

Ubuntu 18.04 and Fedora 28 support color emoji by default, using Noto Color Emoji.[27][28] Some Linux distributions require the installation of extra fonts.[29] Color emoji are supported by FreeType and Cairo.[30][31]

Microsoft Windows

An update for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 brought a subset of the monochrome Unicode set to those operating systems as part of the Segoe UI Symbol font.[32] As of Windows 8.1 Preview, the Segoe UI Emoji font is included, which supplies full-color pictographs. The plain Segoe UI font lacks emoji characters, whereas Segoe UI Symbol and Segoe UI Emoji include them.

Emoji characters are accessed through the onscreen keyboard's 😀 key, or through the physical keyboard shortcut ⊞ Win+..

Differently from macOS and iOS, color glyphs are only supplied when the application supports Microsoft's DirectWrite API, and Segoe UI Emoji is explicitly declared, otherwise monochrome glyphs appear.[33] Microsoft's COLR/CPAL format for multi-color fonts such as Segoe UI Emoji is supported by the current versions of several web browsers on Windows (including Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge), but not by many graphics applications.[34]

Windows 10 Anniversary Update added Unicode 9 emoji.[35]

Social media platforms

Facebook and Twitter replace all Unicode emoji used on their websites with their own custom graphics.

Prior to October 2017, Facebook had different sets for the main site and for its Messenger service, where only the former provides complete coverage. Messenger now uses Apple emoji on iOS, and the main Facebook set elsewhere.[36] Facebook reactions are only partially compatible with standard emoji.[citation needed]

Twitter has released Twemoji, which is their emoji graphics together with a JavaScript library to handle them, under the Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license and the MIT open-source license, respectively.[37] Despite this, the Android and iOS Twitter apps use the emoji graphics that are native to the platform they are running on (Apple and Google), instead of the Twemoji graphics.

Other emoji font vendors

EmojiOne 2.2 logo on the ticket emoji

EmojiOne version 2.2, an open-source font available under a free content license, supports the full emoji set in color through Unicode Emoji 3.0, i.e. Unicode 9.0. Newer versions of EmojiOne, since renamed JoyPixels,[38] support more recent Unicode Emoji versions, and use a stricter license that disallows the redistribution of vector images, while version 2.x is "no longer supported or distributed".[39] EmojiTwo, an open-source fork of EmojiOne 2.2, aims to add all emoji from 2017 and later.

As part of the now-discontinued Firefox OS project, Mozilla developed an emoji font named FxEmojis.[40][41] Mozilla also package a version of Twitter's Twemoji font converted to a COLR/CPAL layered format font, named "Twemoji Mozilla".[42] Older versions of the latter Mozilla project instead packaged the EmojiOne font, as "EmojiOne Mozilla".[43]

The font Symbola contains all emoji through version 10.0 as normal monochrome glyphs. Through version 10, Symbola was a public domain font; beginning with version 11 in 2018, Symbola has been copyrighted with a ban on commercial use and derivative works. Other typefaces including a significant number of emoji characters include Noto Emoji, Adobe Source Emoji, and Quivira.

References

  1. ^ "[MOD] Apple Color Emoji system-wide for KitKat+ (updated with unicorns)". XDA Developers. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
  2. ^ Davidson, Mike. "Open sourcing Twitter emoji for everyone". Twitter developer blog. Twitter. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
  3. ^ "Emoji One: Open Source Emoji". Emoji One. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
  4. ^ El Khoury, Rita (December 11, 2014). "Woohoo! Animated Emoji Easter Eggs Overload The Latest Hangouts With Their Cuteness, Hehehehe". Android Police. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
  5. ^ Google. "Noto Color Emoji". Google Noto Fonts. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  6. ^ Cabebe, Jaymar. "Google Android 4.3 is here, and it tastes like Jelly Bean". CNET.
  7. ^ "Google adds SMS to Hangouts Android app, Emoji to KitKat keyboard". November 7, 2013. Retrieved April 17, 2014.
  8. ^ "Android 7.0 Nougat Emoji Changelog". August 22, 2016. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
  9. ^ "Hangouts – Google Play". Retrieved April 17, 2014.
  10. ^ "emoji – Google Play". Market.android.com. Retrieved November 9, 2012.
  11. ^ Ion, Florence (July 24, 2017). "Fewer Empty Boxes for Android Users". Emojipedia.
  12. ^ Emojipedia. "Google Emoji List".
  13. ^ Emojipedia. "LG Emoji List".
  14. ^ Emojipedia. "Samsung Emoji List".
  15. ^ "Access and Use Emoji in Mac OS X". Osxdaily.com. August 20, 2011. Retrieved January 18, 2014.
  16. ^ "Apple releases iPhone Software v2.2". AppleInsider. Retrieved February 28, 2017.
  17. ^ "Standard Emoji keyboard arrives to iOS 5, here's how to enable it". 9to5Mac. June 8, 2011. Retrieved February 28, 2017.
  18. ^ "Young App Creators Earning Thousands A Day". Sky News. Retrieved February 28, 2017.
  19. ^ "The man who brought us the Emoji". O2. October 16, 2015. Retrieved February 28, 2017.
  20. ^ Underhill, Allison (April 10, 2015). "The 'Diversity' of Emojis". The Huffington Post. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  21. ^ Cipriani, Jason (October 23, 2013). "How to access emoji in OS X 10.9 Mavericks". CNET. Retrieved January 18, 2014.
  22. ^ "Apple Says 'Face With Tears of Joy' is Most Popular Emoji in United States Among English Speakers". Retrieved November 3, 2017.
  23. ^ "😃 Emoji People and Smileys Meanings". emojipedia.org. Retrieved November 3, 2017.
  24. ^ Kelly, Heather. "Redheads, lobsters and cupcakes: Apple shows off new iOS emojis". CNNMoney. Retrieved 2018-07-17.
  25. ^ "Apple emoji will soon include people with curly hair, white hair and superpowers". www.msn.com. Retrieved 2018-07-17.
  26. ^ "How to Create and Use Memoji and Animoji on an iPhone". How to Geek. 2020-01-18. Retrieved 2020-03-20.
  27. ^ "Ubuntu 18.04 Will Support Color Emoji – OMG! Ubuntu!". OMG! Ubuntu!. 2017-11-08. Retrieved 2018-06-09.
  28. ^ "What's New in Fedora 28 Workstation – Fedora Magazine". Fedora Magazine. 2018-05-01. Retrieved 2018-06-09.
  29. ^ Petherbridge, Noah (April 4, 2013). "Make Emoji Work in Linux". Kistle blog. Retrieved October 7, 2014.
  30. ^ LEMBERG, Werner. "[ft-announce] FreeType now supports color emojis". Retrieved April 13, 2018.
  31. ^ Larabel, Michael. "Cairo 1.15.8 Released With Support For Colored Emoji – Phoronix". Phoronix. Retrieved April 13, 2018.
  32. ^ "An update for the Segoe UI symbol font in Windows 7 and in Windows Server 2008 R2 is available". Microsoft Support.
  33. ^ "Script and Font Support in Windows". Microsoft. Archived from the original on September 23, 2017. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  34. ^ "What's inside color fonts?". Color Fonts - Get ready for the revolution!.
  35. ^ "Windows 10 Anniversary Update Adds Over 52,000 New Emojis, Including NinjaCat". Windows Central. August 2, 2016. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  36. ^ Burge, Jeremy (2 October 2017). "Facebook Discontinues Messenger Emojis". Emojipedia.
  37. ^ "GitHub – twitter/twemoji: Twitter Emoji for Everyone". GitHub. July 20, 2017. Retrieved September 24, 2017.
  38. ^ Neufeld, Sarah (2019). "EmojiOne is Now JoyPixels".
  39. ^ JoyPixels (July 8, 2021). "emoji-toolkit".
  40. ^ Mozilla (June 15, 2021). "FxEmojis — a friendly emoji set from Mozilla". GitHub.
  41. ^ Emojipedia. "Mozilla Emoji List — Emojis for Firefox OS". Emojipedia.
  42. ^ Mozilla (July 8, 2021). "twemoji-colr: Twemoji font in COLR/CPAL layered format". GitHub.
  43. ^ Mozilla. "emojione-colr: Project to create a COLR/CPAL-based color OpenType font from the EmojiOne collection of emoji images". GitHub. v0.2.2.
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