Previous “Emoji” posts

Who Pooped My Mailbox?

Friday, February 19th, 2016

Back in November, I purchased a stuffed emoji pile of poo pillow.

November Pile of Poo Pic
Smiling Brown Triangle

How do I know it was November? Well, because said pillow was actually a work expense for my lady Maggie, at her completely professional and totally mature job. I used Square Cash (Square Cash!) to get paid back, complete with a dated explanation in an appropriately cartoony bubble.

Square Negotiations
Really rather expensive for a poop pillow

Anyhow, flash forward to yesterday, when a mysterious package arrived in my mailbox from So Unique Gifts.

February Pile of Poo Pic
It looks angry.

Now I appreciate the opportunity to earn some Instagram likes as much as the next guy, but thus far, I’ve gotten no answers. Multiple people have expressed that they wished they’d been the ones to send me this, but none have actually claimed responsibility. So, who did it? Reveal yourself, shitposter!

Update (February 22nd, 2016): Tune in to this mystery’s not-very-exciting conclusion!

Too Big to Emoji

Tuesday, November 10th, 2015

Anyone who reads this site knows I love emoji. A mountain of evidence makes it clear that I’m a big fan. Still, when I get an email like this:

  • ❄ ☃ Excited about the Holidays? ☃ ❄

I tend to think, maybe the financial institution which holds my mortgage should be just a bit more professional.

Apple’s Upped Their Emoji Game ∞

Thursday, October 22nd, 2015

Now, up yours.

If you’ve joined us in the future, please enjoy: 🖕. It’s been a long 16 month wait, but finally we can flip the emoji bird to our heart’s content.

(With apologies to Pat Paulsen.)

An Emoji Primer ∞

Monday, September 14th, 2015

Over at Gizmodo, Alissa Walker has a great overview of many aspects of emoji, including the origins of emoji, how new emoji are added, and why symbols for food allergens aren’t included.

Finally

Thursday, September 10th, 2015

It appears that when Apple ships iOS 9.1, iPhone users will have access to a key symbol of human communication. In a beta posted yesterday, Apple greatly expanded the number of supported emoji, including multiple new hand gestures. Of course, there’s one gesture that all have been waiting for, and it looks like we’ll be getting it at long last.

Apple's Middle Finger Emoji
Finally, it will be possible to flip someone off via emoji.

This new middle finger emoji was approved almost 15 months ago, as part of Unicode 7. However, Apple was slow to add it to their devices. After many impatient months, I went so far as to file a bug report with Apple on the matter. A few weeks later, however, that bug report was closed with a disappointed statement of “no plans to address this”. Worse, it soon became clear that Microsoft was taking the lead when it came to expressing one’s self via emoji. When this summer’s iOS 9 betas failed to include this important new glyph, I stewed for hours on end.

Today, however, I can breathe a sigh of relief.1 The bird is coming to our emoji. What a time to be alive! Have a look at a full gallery of the new emoji coming in iOS 9.1, which also include a taco, a burrito, an adorable little chipmunk, and much more. Then, sit through a few more weeks of anticipation until we finally get what we deserve!

Footnotes:

  1. As well as rejoice in the fact that I actually got a Radar (bug report) fixed, something fellow developers will know is all too rare. ↩︎

Baseball, Emoji, and a Rainout ∞

Monday, July 20th, 2015

History happened at Angel Stadium yesterday, but it wasn’t really the good kind. For the first time in over 20 years, an Angels game was called due to rain. The fans were no doubt disappointed, but at least the two teams had fun with it on their Twitter accounts, as the Angels solicited advice from the Red Sox on what to do during a rain delay.

Emoji Battle ∞

Thursday, July 9th, 2015

NBA center DeAndre Jordan is a free agent, and both the Dallas Mavericks and Los Angeles Clippers are hoping he’ll sign with their team. Yesterday, the battle for his services led an emoji battle to break out between NBA players. It quickly spread beyond the two teams.

Perhaps the best part of the whole thing was this pair of tweets:

[Picture of an emoji]
@paulpierce34

Paul Pierce just tweeted with his Game Boy color lol
@rudygobert27

Rather than tweeting an emoji, Paul Pierce tweeted a picture of an emoji, and Rudy Gobert took him to task. What a time to be alive.

A Pricey Gesture ∞

Wednesday, June 24th, 2015

Neither the iPhone not Android (yet) offer the middle finger emoji, but the United Arab Emirates is still warning against its use.

Last month, authorities in the UAE warned that sending a middle finger emoji would also be punishable under the law.

Well, so much for a trip to Dubai!

Previously in Emoji: A catalog of emoji-related posts

Cupertino, Start Your Photocopiers ∞

Monday, May 4th, 2015

Windows 10 is coming, and when it arrives it will instantly catapult Microsoft to the front of the pack when it comes to emoji. This summer, the company from Redmond will be providing the world with these glorious glyphs:

Windows 10 Emoji Middle Fingers
Such wonderful diversity, too!

I’ve previously expressed my concern that I’ll have to switch my mobile OS to Android. Now, I’m terrified I’m going to have to switch to Windows as well. For now, I’m fervently hoping Apple shows us something good at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

Emoji News for April 9th, 2015

Thursday, April 9th, 2015

Readers are likely aware of this blog’s love of the wonderful world of emoji. Today, we bring you important emoji news updates.

Apple officially released iOS 8.3 and Mac OS X 10.10.3 on Wednesday, and these updates brought some emoji changes. As previously discussed, the new operating systems offer multiple pigments for many of the people emoji. In fact, iOS will even teach you how to use this functionality:

Select Skin Tone

Unfortunately, however, the much-sought-after “Reversed Hand With Middle Finger Extended” is still unavailable in either of Apple’s OSes. Worse, Apple recently closed the bug report your humble author filed in hopes of making this available to the eager masses!

There are no plans to address this. We are now closing this report.
Not a good sign

One can only hope that “There are no plans to address this” is not an actual statement of policy from Apple.

There is one small bit of positive movement on the emoji front. As first reported over on Six Colors, Apple has tweaked things for one solitary new emoji. Likely as a tribute to the late Leonard Nimoy, “Raised Hand With Part Between Middle And Ring Fingers” is now semi-supported. While it doesn’t appear in the emoji keyboard itself, the symbol will be shown properly when a page refers to it. Scrolling Emojipedia’s new emoji page shows the lone newcomer:

One visible emoji
A whole lotta unsupportedness

The rest of the new emoji remain entirely unsupported, and don’t appear at all at this time. We’ll keep you apprised, as more develops.

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