Facebook Messenger for iOS Gains 1,500 New Emoji Characters

[MacRumors]

Facebook has announced that it is adding 1,500 new emojis to its Messenger app in order to cater for the diversity of its users.

The new emojis follow Apple's bulk addition of new emoji characters to iOS last year, but Facebook claims that Messenger is the first platform to feature a female police officer, runner, pedestrian, surfer, and swimmer, and notes that more are to come in the near future.

Facebook also notes that it is making changes to how emojis are displayed in the app.

Previously, some users would see replacement emoji characters that were native to their device, but now all users will see the same ones, irrespective of how they access the service. The company says that this will ensure that no one will see "broken-looking black boxes or emojis that just don't make sense."

Additionally, Facebook announced the addition of a new emoji picker for all platforms, located in the iOS app at the left of the composer.

Facebook Messenger is a free download for iPhone and iPad on the App Store. [Direct link]

Article Link: Facebook Messenger for iOS Gains 1,500 New Emoji Characters

 

[555gallardo]

Best one so far:

 

[JohnApples]

Oh boy. Can't wait for the comments on this one. I know how much Macrumors users love diversified emojis.

 

[koolmagicguy]

Some suggestions for you:

Facebookrumors.com
Googlerumors.com
Twitterrumors.com
Teslarumors.com

 

[JosephAW]

I experience the square box emoji when messaging other iOS in iMessage as if my iOS doesn't know what it is. But if you select the text and speak it and tells you what it is. Weird. Almost like apple is deliberately holding back the displaying of emojis.

 

[2010mini]

Ok..... I'm in the minority class and I still don't get why yellow emojis are considered white. They are yellow with no features to show ethnicity.... Why the Need for skintoned emojis????

Are emojis THAT important, that we need this definition? Writing with words aren't enough anymore?

 

[TheSlush]

If this were somehow specific to iOS, I would understand it being newsworthy on MacRumors. But simply reporting on iOS/Android app updates? Irrelevant.

Also, I anticipate this thread moving to the "Politics, Religion, and Social Issues" category in 5... 4... 3... 2...

 

[pgiguere1]

I feel like we're stretching the definition of "emojis" here.

As I understand, those are proprietary emoticons independent from the emoji unicode standard, much like those or those: .

 

[Northgrove]

I have no problem with this... I mean that they are introducing so many. As long as search and categorization is there to make them manageable, it's all OK... If the emoji style is nice! I think the old Android emoji set looks terrible (thank god Google is coming to their senses with "Android N"), the Windows 8/10 emoji set looks terrible. Facebook's in house emojis tend to be more fine with me though, and thankfully I like the iOS style the most. This is a case where I do want slight 3D styles and not completely flat countourless crap since often yellow faces otherwise blur with white background so easily.

I wish they would've focused on "just" supporting the full set as of Unicode 9.0 though. There's plenty there.

 

[WaxedJacket]

They had to hire a team to work on creating 1,500 little clip art pieces. Seems excessive but hey, I'm not head of accounting at Facebook.

 

[Mactendo]

New Emojis = More Diversity

Does it have an emoji representing an Apple Store employee getting death threats on a minimum wage?..

 

[Elbon]

I don't personally understand the fascination with emoji. I probably use 4 or 5 on a regular basis, the same ones I've been using for the past 20 years or so:

:-( ;-) >:-(

I stopped using the emoji keyboard on iOS because it made it difficult to find these simple characters. I just went back to typing them as sideways smileys.

[edit] Apparently MR automatically recognizes happy and silly faces but not sad, mad, or winky.

 

[koolmagicguy]

I don't personally understand the fascination with emoji. I probably use 4 or 5 on a regular basis, the same ones I've been using for the past 20 years or so:

:-( ;-) >:-(

I stopped using the emoji keyboard on iOS because it made it difficult to find these simple characters. I just went back to typing them as sideways smileys.

[edit] Apparently MR automatically recognizes happy and silly faces but not sad, mad, or winky.

 

[adamjackson]

but these aren't emoji, right? These are just stickers.

Emoji is a global standard with an approval process. If I were to use these over SMS, they wouldn't display on the other side, therefore they're just stickers.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Who thought human language could devolve so rapidly. Its like we are revisiting the Stone Age and our phones and computers are our caves.

 

[kwikdeth]

Oh boy. Can't wait for the comments on this one. I know how much Macrumors users love diversified emojis.

Actually it doesn't bother me when other people do it, because Facebook doesn't have a mile-long list of unresolved bugs that go months at a time without a fix. I completely support diversity in these apps. What I don't support is failure to fix broken product while wasting time on relative frivolities.

 

[C DM]

If this were somehow specific to iOS, I would understand it being newsworthy on MacRumors. But simply reporting on iOS/Android app updates? Irrelevant.

Also, I anticipate this thread moving to the "Politics, Religion, and Social Issues" category in 5... 4... 3... 2...

On those that are extremely prevalent, why not?

 

[JohnApples]

Actually it doesn't bother me when other people do it, because Facebook doesn't have a mile-long list of unresolved bugs that go months at a time without a fix. I completely support diversity in these apps. What I don't support is failure to fix broken product while wasting time on relative frivolities.

I definitely see your point, and I can also definitely see how frustrating it can be when you're waiting for a fix and get handed updates with rather insignificant new features instead.

But I do have to pull out the "different teams" argument. The people who's job it is to fix those issues are not the same people who add the new emojis. Sure, you could say that Apple should "allocate more resources" to the appropriate team instead, but the new emojis were probably planned way in advance.

 

[glutenenvy]

The only emoji news worth reading is of them retiring. They are very difficult to make out without quadrupling the font size text would otherwise come in.

What is the single emoji that says, "I do not speak emoji. I do not communicate with glitter and stickers. I use my words and often form complete sentances. Please conform future messages and refrain from emoji use."? The closest one I have glanced at was the middle finger but I think it will fail to get the same meaning across.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

The only emoji news worth reading is of them retiring. They are very difficult to make out without quadrupling the font size text would otherwise come in.

What is the single emoji that says, "I do not speak emoji. I do not communicate with glitter and stickers. I use my words and often form complete sentances. Please conform future messages and refrain from emoji use."? The closest one I have glanced at was the middle finger but I think it will fail to get the same meaning across.

edit: evidently macrumors doesn't support emoji, my *older man* emoji was stripped upon posting.

 

[C DM]

edit: evidently macrumors doesn't support emoji, my *older man* emoji was stripped upon posting.

There are certain ones that are (natively) supported, like and of course

 

[Parasprite]

The one with bunny ears will come in handy.
[doublepost=1464913882][/doublepost]

[edit] Apparently MR automatically recognizes happy and silly faces but not sad, mad, or winky.

It replaces them if you nix the nose:

 

[h4lp m3]

And not one of them looks like a standard emoj...

 

[SpiderDude]

This is an uphill battle. It cannot be won.
The reason why this crowd claims for the emoji is because they want to be unique.
If you give them an emoji than anyone can use they will no longer feel unique and will start demanding new emoji.
The more you give them the more they will come up with.
Hell, have you not heard about what just happened in NYC? The state now recognizes 31 genders (yes, 31). However, tumblr is already raging on about how 31 is extremely bigoted and still excludes people.

Good luck facebook.
I can already see it being the year 2025 and when someone accidentally opens the emoji pop up on their phone all the mobile data gets spend because it is reloading the gazzilion emoji that have been created in the mean time. ahahah

 

[MasterRyu2011]

never got the concept of emojis. I find that with the correct use of the exclamation point, "LOL" and actual words that I can convey most of my emotions, wants, and desires pretty accurately...LOL