💬 The Wrap
Some things to look forward to in 2018: Samsung will soon support the 2017 emoji list, Unicode will announce a new emoji list for 2018 (currently in beta), and most major platforms will support new emojis by the end of the year.
Unicode held its quarterly technical committee meeting in Silicon Valley last week, and many of the decisions will be published in the coming months including the aforementioned 2018 emoji list. Unicode deals with a much wider range of text encoding matters than just emoji and document published for this meeting discusses some of the reasons a character may be approved as an emoji compared to a regular Unicode symbol.
Also in 2018: what will this year's emoji “scandal” be? Surely 2017 went to burger-emoji-gate, and 2016 could well have been a tie between the gun emoji and the peach emoji changes.
On a personal note, Emojipedia turns five this year which snuck up on me rather quickly. To all of those who were around since the early days, thank you!
📰 News
🦁 Apple previews iOS 11.3 with new Animojis
One benefit (for Apple) in switching to 3D-rendered emojis over the past two years is that any of them can now be used for Animoji. Bear, Dragon, Lion and Skull are all being added to the Animoji options in iOS 11.3.
📊 Emoji Sentiment Analysis 2015-2017
This report looks at who uses more emojis, which countries use more positive or negative emojis, and how the time of day affects which emojis we use.
👻 Introducing Bitmoji Deluxe
Snap Inc bought Bitmoji for a reported $100 million back in 2016. As one of the better-known sticker apps to use a "moji" branding, Bitmoji seem to be as popular as ever. Now with "extra skin tones, hairstyles, hair colors, facial features, accessories and more" is this the future of emoji-like communications, or just a supplement?
📲 Samsung Experience 9 is expected to launch on Galaxy S9
Samsung should be adding support for the 2017 emoji list from Feb 2018. Sadly, many Samsung users won't get this update promptly, or at all.
💭 Interesting
👩🎨 The Making of Apple’s Emoji: How designing these tiny icons changed my life
"We left the tough ones to last, so the dancer with the red dress emerged towards the end of my internship as it was the one that kept getting punted." — Angela Guzman, one of the designers involved in Apple's original emoji set.
🦓 We Fact-Checked 8 Animal Emojis—Here's What We Found
For me, emoji appearance should go in order of clarity > cuteness > accuracy. If all three can be achieved, even better.
👩⚖️ Lawyers Faced With Emojis and Emoticons Are All ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“Chipmunks, kissy lips and champagne bottles are becoming bones of contention in legal disputes’”
💩 This Poop Emoji-wrapped BMW 7 Series is ridiculous
Idea: emoji designs on cars to reflect the personality of the driver.
🐶 New iPhone X ad from Apple
Apple has gone all-in with emoji on their latest iPhone X ad. Meant to highlight Animoji, it makes use of the new 3D rendered emojis throughout.
🖼 Explaining Contemporary Art With Emojis — Google Arts & Culture
A very good explainer on what is contemporary art. Not about emojis at all, though they do help drive the points home.
🎙 Podcasts
💡 Ungeniused #43 from Relay FM
I joined Stephen Hackett on the latest episode of Ungeniused with a look at the progression of emoji implementations over the years. A quick 15 min listen if you're not aware of the emoji backstory.
🎙 Emoji Wrap — The Emoji Podcast from Emojipedia
Each month I chat with someone involved in the emoji world about the contents of this very newsletter. The next episode isn't far away, but you can subscribe right now on Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Overcast or Castro.