An interview with an Apple emoji designer

Emoji (and their predecessor, emoticons) are IMO the greatest new feature for written language that has happened in generations. Eschewing them is certainly a choice you can make, but I personally think it's a poor one.

Authors can now bundle emotional sentiment in text communication. Not being able to do this in the past was usually just an annoyance but could occasionally turn out to be extremely problematic. Countless miscommunications have occurred due to recipients not correctly interpreting an author's tone, and we now have a tool that can help reduce or potentially eliminate those misunderstandings. It's early days, so we're still seeing teething issues: different emoji sets conveying subtly different cues and evolving social norms around their use. But they have incredible potential.

You know, I would actually use little Pokemon sprite emojis, unlike the real thing.

Stickers are for you. Plenty of uncensored content and as soon as you send one from one of your packs, the recipient can start using them anywhere as well.

https://signalstickers.org/

It's virtue signaling - nonsense from the same people who unironically say things like "lived experience" and "emotional labor." It shows they're part of a particular group, so they're Good, and if you're not, you're Bad.

It is free PR so corporations lap that kind of thing up.

Maybe edit rather than omit? Apple changed the people kissing with actual lip contact, the 1910s-looking cancan dancers, and the stink lines on the poop.

I will be. Thanks.

By the way, Walnut Creek is less than 100 miles from Cupertino.

I love walnuts.

Gotta love websites that hijack basic browser functions, in this case forcing smooth scroll on.

Simply because nobody has successfully pitched the Unicode group to add one.

Anyone can pitch new emoji, they just have to go through the fairly easy but strict formal process.

I was looking for a pirate emoji like 5 minutes ago. I'm sure it's not the first time but I'm super surprised that still isn't in there. Seems so obvious.

Well there's a pirate flag

What’s next, a cowboy emoji? A ninja emoji? But seriously, as much as I like emojis, I kind of feel like they should stick to emotions. Maybe other intangible things. They’re hard to convey verbally (and succinctly), simple concrete nouns are good for a bit of fun and for UI icons, but really not very useful if we’re being honest. Unless you’re texting with a lizard, or my lazy elementary-school niece who shouldn’t really have a phone anyway…

These are very nostalgic. The way Apple's emoji look has subtly changed since then.

To be honest, the images look like things I've seen a hundred times over in comic books and not much more original than GenAI.

LOL