Emoji explanation?

[sushi]

I can't actually believe an entire country uses smiley faces/little pictures to communicate!

In case you haven't noticed, Japan uses characters (Kanji) that pictorially describe an item, concept or idea.

They are a pictorial based culture when it comes to expressing their ideas.

In fact, when conversing in Japanese, you may see Japanese folks using their hands to illustrate specific Kanji (or Hiragana/Katagana) to clarify meaning.

So there is no doubt, that as a culture, they rely on Emoji to communicate.

If Apple wants to be a player in the Japanese market, they need Emoji. It's as simple as that.

 

[windowpain]

Hmm, emoji as modern kanji.. that kinda makes a lot of sense.

I suppose it is the same thing really, I'd just never thought of it that way.

 

[mkrishnan]

I think Americans should get Emoji too! If this is why we're not getting push notifications, cut & paste, etc. now because of Emoji, they should just unlock that feature for ALL countries!

I think (I'm not sure) that emoji rely on features of the domestic SMS networks in Japan that are not available here?

It would seem, though, that you could have an inline interpreter for emoticons just like you do in IM ... for that matter, you could have (and I've asked for one) such a parser for e-mails too, which would be really nice. It would just text the character equivalent, like :), and then you would get ....

But I'm not sure if that's how emoji work. In fact -- validation -- they don't. They're transmitted via private unicode characters. I guess that you could do that in the US on the iPhone too, although I'm not sure -- do SMS in the US and elsewhere outside Japan allow for the full unicode palette? Anyway, the system that IM uses of transmitting text equivalents seems somewhat better in some ways, in that they're still legible (although less cute) to users who don't have the feature. Emoji would be garbage characters or blanks on a non-compatible device.

 

[The Governor]

then a market is a market, and the product will not sell unless it gives people what they want.

Well, then maybe a better question would be: what is the market for emoji? Teenagers right? I could be way off here, but I can't see Japanese professionals plaguing their emails/sms with emoji icons?

 

[mavis]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (16GB): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

I can't actually believe an entire country uses smiley faces/little pictures to communicate! Its like a childrens book that has a picture of a cat rather than the cat! It just sounds so wierd and childish that there are adults who cant possibly use a phone unless they an send an icon to explain what they mean rather than just type it- very bizzare!

And i wish apple wouldnt waste their time with things such as street view and emoji (especially, as it seems, they cant even implement it right!).

Stop being so culturally shallow and go and experience life in the rest of the world.

Well said. Emoji are used by many Japanese, and it is expected that any phone purchased in Japan will support them. End of story.

It amazes me how people with no knowledge of this country insist on debating this fact.

 

[sushi]

Well, then maybe a better question would be: what is the market for emoji? Teenagers right? I could be way off here, but I can't see Japanese professionals plaguing their emails/sms with emoji icons?

People of all ages, not just teenagers.

A simple emoji is very easy to select (choose) -- in most cases easier than inputing the Kanji (or Hiragana/Katagana) as needed to express your idea.

Emoji are used by many Japanese, and it is expected that any phone purchased in Japan will support them. End of story.

Agree.

It amazes me how people with no knowledge of this country insist on debating this fact.

So very true.

 

[dukebound85]

i guess there is a way to enable it

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/605546/

it works on my phone! pretty cool actually

 

[SFStateStudent]

Here's a screenshot of emoji on my 3G iPhone 2.2 Firmware enabled via Cydia https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/605843/:

 

[yamaduc]

So for us without a jail broken phone and no sim from SimBank Emoji is a no go, eh?

 

[andyblila]

So for us without a jail broken phone and no sim from SimBank Emoji is a no go, eh?

There's got to be a way. I just need to find an iTunes backup editor. I found an extractor, but there is no way to save it back to the back up. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[kas23]

Oh please, I really need that large, steaming pile of smiling poop! No sarcasm, I swear. I really want the smiling turd.

 

[nimda0]

Nobody outside of Japan.

Yeah no kidding there.....

I was anxiously awaiting this actually.... and not because it would be some really awesome beneficial addition to the phone, but more because at least it was SOMETHING that I could use to explain why they weren't adding the features we really want. "Ohhhh it's ok... they were just adding this feature before they added MMS and etc...............".

Now, since they didn't include that for U.S. customers..... I won't have that as an excuse. Apple, you suck.

 

[sergiuria]

Yeah no kidding there.....

I was anxiously awaiting this actually.... and not because it would be some really awesome beneficial addition to the phone, but more because at least it was SOMETHING that I could use to explain why they weren't adding the features we really want. "Ohhhh it's ok... they were just adding this feature before they added MMS and etc...............".

Now, since they didn't include that for U.S. customers..... I won't have that as an excuse. Apple, you suck.

You can enable it for every country. Search for it, someone posted about it yesterday

 

[milani]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/603964/

Anyway, this is like asking why American users would have a problem with having an IM client except it doesn't support AIM, MSN, or Google Talk, or having a keyboard for texting except it doesn't have R, L, T, I, U, or M on it.

Japanese customers use Emoji. It's been named repeatedly as one of the major barriers to iPhone adoption there.

So people won't buy a phone because it lacks special picture icons? Wow...

 

[SFStateStudent]

So people won't buy a phone because it lacks special picture icons? Wow...

That, and the fact that they can't hang any charms on the 3G iPhone... LOL

 

[dukebound85]

whoops

 

[davyreins]

So people won't buy a phone because it lacks special picture icons? Wow...

Is it the only reason? No. A major reason? Yes. When I went to Japan they had some pretty cool phones that could do a lot of things the iphone couldn't. It wouldn't surprise that not having this would detour them from getting the iphone if they have other great options.

 

[The Governor]

So emoji was/is one of the more advertised features in 2.2 and it only works in a jailbroken phone? Am I missing something here?

Does emoji work natively in other countries

 

[sushi]

So people won't buy a phone because it lacks special picture icons? Wow...

Yep, you got it.

That, and the fact that they can't hang any charms on the 3G iPhone... LOL

 

[kas23]

That, and the fact that they can't hang any charms on the 3G iPhone... LOL

Yeah, that was the true deal breaker for me...

 

[djfour]

Does anyone know what the emoji combination for, "I'm a wealthy Japanese businessman and I want to eat your poo"? Just curious, because I'm guessing there must be one...

Just Sane...