Emojis On iPhone: Celebrating 10 Years Of Evolution

From the day that Apple release the emoji keyboard on November 21^st, 2008, its crucial role in popularizing emojis is undeniable. At that time, only iPhone users in Japan got the chance to use this feature on an operating system called iPhone OS instead of iOS like today.

Now that the emoji keyboard has reached its 10^th birthday, let’s take a look at the story behind them and their evolution.

2011: Emoji Keyboard Was Released Globally

In 2011, with the release of iOS 5, it was the first time that emoji keyboard made its debut outside Japan. Before this happened, users needed to install a third-party app if they want to use the emoji keyboard.

2012: New Emojis came out. A lot of them!

In 2012, 376 new emojis were released, which really boosted the use of emojis in daily conversation. Gradually and steadily, this number has been increasing. These days, you are even able to make your own emojis.

2015: Time for diversity

Previous versions of emojis were only offered in one skin tone. This became problematic when the number of people using emojis globally increased non-stop. The feature to change the skin tone came out in 2015. Apple then made a decision in bringing in a numerical classification schema for human skin tone called Fitzpatrick skin-tone scale. The iOS 8.3 update came with this and a whole lot of new emojis which presented different lifestyles and cultures to show cultural diversity.

The number of emojis on iOS has reached 2,776 ever since their debut in 2008. New emojis with updated looks were added with every new iOS release.

2017: The Arrival of Animojis

The arrival of Animojis was a major step for the evolution of emojis. Through tracking users’ movements with iPhone’s TrueDepth sensors, animated emojis were brought to life. This meant that if users sang and bobbled their head, their Animojis would do the exact same thing.

2018: Memojis and The Bagel Emoji Controversy

This year, Memoji was introduced. You can make any Memoji match your mood and personality. Users can change from the eyes, hair to any other facial features.

The release was met with a few criticisms as people complained that there was no cream cheese or any other filling for the bagel emoji’s design. ‘Accessibility Emojis’ was also introduced to help disabled people in expressing themselves.

What’s coming up next for Emojis?

To wait and see what new tricks Apple can bring us to make emojis more interactive is interesting. Maybe there will be a new feature where users can create emojis from everyday objects. Of course, this may sound a bit out of reach but with 3D scanning, it might actually work.