If you’re waiting for the Android 8.0 Oreo update from Samsung, then you might be pleasantly surprised to learn that Samsung will also be updating its emoji library to bring some of its more tortured emoji into line with other emoji libraries.
If you’re wondering if this is such an important thing, then you’re probably right. It’s not that big a deal. However, if the horror of emoji-imparity is not something that happens to you, don’t underestimate the impact it can have on other people. Check out how it affected poor sweet Jessica Chastain on Twitter (via The Verge).
Is this a Samsung thing?!
The shocked emoji is what I put in my tweet and is what I see when I go on my twitter. A friend forwarded me an article that referred to it. The emoji is completely different! Is that what all of you see? Its drooling. Now I look like a pervert… pic.twitter.com/F3aaRSBzng— Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) February 1, 2018
Those of us who use Samsung devices pretty much exclusively might not have realized quite how large a difference there is between emojis on the current Samsung Experience and other platforms, but Emojipedia breaks it down pretty simply.
The “rolling eyes” emoji from Samsung Experience 8.5 might be the only guy at the party who looks like he’s having a good time, but it’s pretty obvious that there’s a pretty massive difference between that emoji and supposedly similar “rolling eyes” emojis from other companies. Simply put, you’re not going to be sending the message you think you’re sending, and in the world of 260-character tweets and SMS messages, such a mistake could be deadly. To your street cred.
It seems that Samsung has overhauled the majority of its icons. Most people-style emojis have been changed to a more usual yellow color, the dancing girl has got her class back, and the screaming face is much less anime. There’s also been a disarmament, with the pistol changing into a water gun, and — most importantly — the crackers emoji changing to the cookies it was always meant to be. Who says crackers when they mean cookies? That’s an emoji-crime quite clearly as egregious as Google’s terrible hamburger.
Samsung isn’t stopping with just these changes. It’s adding 239 new emojis to the lineup, bringing its emoji library in line with the new Emoji 5.0 standards, and adding brand-new skin color variations to existing icons as well. All humor aside, emojis are a part of how we communicate today, and while it’s nice to have variety across platforms, Samsung’s emojis have probably led to more than a few of us looking a tad silly from time to time. These changes will roll out with the latest Samsung Android 8.0 Oreo.
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