Every time I send an emoticon since 8.3, the recipient gets the emoticon followed by an alien. How do I stop this happening?
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Alien emoticons
- Thread starter sunking101
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It sounds like it could be an incompatibility. Is this with SMS or using an app? Is the recipient on iOS or something else? If iOS, have they also installed 8.3?
They're on iOS7 and keep asking me why I'm sending alien emoticons.
If I send a white skin tone thumbs up or any of the emoticons which used to be white by default, the recipient sees them but also an alien immediately afterwards. I use the old man a lot ## and he used to be white, but now if I send the white old man he is followed by an alien. The only way to stop this is sending a yellow old man # but this new emoticon looks awful!
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Most of my friends are on iOS7 and won't be updating.
What about sending to Android phones? My mother is on Android and used to get the smiley faces etc when I messaged her on Whatsapp. Will she see the aliens too?
The new emoticons use a kind of sign so the phones know which skin tone the emoji has. For anyone who's not using iOS 8.3, that sign is translated as the usual emoji followed by an unknown symbol (often, the alien head).
The only way to avoid it is either only sending messages to people with iOS 8.3, or sending the standard emoji (in the case of the old man, the ugly yellow one).
That's the thing though, the ugly yellow old man was never the standard emoji. I guess I'll just have to stop using that one now.
If the "white" one used to be standard, then I'd assume that the recipient will receive the white one even if you send the yellow one (hopefully that makes sense!).
Having said that, I'd still recommend upgrading to an iOS 8-capable phone just for the performance increase. I admit that it can be expensive though
Having said that, I'd still recommend upgrading to an iOS 8-capable phone just for the performance increase. I admit that it can be expensive though
If the "white" one used to be standard, then I'd assume that the recipient will receive the white one even if you send the yellow one (hopefully that makes sense!).
Having said that, I'd still recommend upgrading to an iOS 8-capable phone just for the performance increase. I admit that it can be expensive though
I can confirm this. If I send the ugly yellow old man emoji, the recipient receives the old style beige man with grey hair. Trouble is, how do you know if people are on iOS8.3 or not? Sending an alien can ruin a joke or make people think WTF.
That's the tricky bit. If enough people complain to Apple about the problem then they may push out a new version of 7 with support for the new emoji, but I wouldn't hold my breath... and it wouldn't help for anyone still on 8.0 through 8.2.
You can't even change the couples kissing skin color. It looks so stupid when I send a yellow one to my girlfriend. I can't believe they couldn't just leave it the way it was. Tim Cook really needs to be politically correct I guess.