Everything You Need to Know about Apple Emoji

2 Min Read Published: Mar 23rd, 2015

Updated: Nov 16th, 2015

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Emoji has dramatically changed the way we communicate with the world. Emoji allows us to express feelings, communicate emotions, or spruce up an iMessage in a fun way. Emoji is a universal code that has been around for years but most of us didn’t know about it until Apple made the emoticon language available on iPhone and Mac.
Emoji is fun for all ages and it makes text-based communication more enjoyable. Emoji is awesome to have but you might have wondered “where did it come from?”
Emojis are not new and have been around for nearly two decades. Emojis were created in 1998 by Shigetaka Kurita. Originally developed in Japan, emojis quickly spread across the rest of Asia and eventually made their way to the United States.
Emoji was officially released on Apple’s iPhone with iOS 5. iPhone users had to manually activate the emoji keyboard deep in the settings menu. The emoji keyboard could be used by pressing the globe button on the bottom left side of the traditional alphabetical keyboard. This globe button was replaced in iOS 8 by the readily available smiley face button which no longer needs to be activated in the settings menu.
Many of the available emojis are widely understood across cultures. However, emojis were developed in Japan and people of western cultures might be clueless to what some of the emoticons mean. Luckily the website iEmoji provides definitions for the entire emoji keyboard including the more ambiguous emoticons. Below are five commonly misinterpreted emojis and their meanings.

There are tons of emojis to choose from; however, when it comes to racial diversity the options are limited. Controversy surrounds the emoticon language because most of the emoticons are biased towards one race.

Apple will address this issue in an emoji update that will be coming this year. Not only will they include people with light skin and dark skin, but they will also include every shade of skin in-between. Apple does not stop at racial diversity; they will also be adding emojis that include families of same-sex orientation. Apple is proving to be a leader in progress towards an all-embracing society.