Filed under: Odds and ends, iPhone
Emoji on your iPhone :-)
Emoji, Japanese for "picture" + "letter," is a set of picture characters used in Japan much in the same way as emoticons here in the US. The Emoji pictographs, however, offer a wider variety of images than emoticons which are typically limited to just expressing an emotion or facial expression such as winking.Emoji pictographs include the usual suspects from the emoticon gang as well as many others. Such gems as the top hat, a diamond ring for "txting" your wedding proposal, and also some holiday goodies like Santa, and a ghost are all part of the fun! For the majority of cell phones, Emoji is a Japanese-focused feature that is not implemented much in the US. Some, however, have already enabled the use of Emoji through a process that requires jailbreaking the iPhone.
There is a simpler way, however. We touched on the enabling of Emoji in a recent iPhone 101 article. This post over at MacTalk provides a very detailed step-by-step walkthrough for enabling Emoji on iPhones with firmware 2.2. Justine also covered this procedure for enabling Emoji over at her site.
The process involves purchasing and briefly using an application called FrostySpace ($0.99, iTunes link). The result is that a new international keyboard, "Emoji," is available for your use. Please note: FrostySpace is a
If you get this working (or don't) we'd love to hear about your experiences in the comments.
Thanks to Chris Pirillo and others for sending this in!
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Swimatm said 2:07PM on 1-26-2009
Oh my goodness, that's so Japanese.
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Kenneth said 2:08PM on 1-26-2009
FrostySpace is a fairly popular Macintosh news website in Taiwan. That iPhone/iPod touch app is a Chinese-language RSS reader rather than Japanese, the creator even mentions that on the iTunes App Store.
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John Wilker said 2:27PM on 1-26-2009
it works pretty well, a bunch of us did it last week. very fun to send Smiley poo to your friends. To receive they don't need to app or the unlock it offers, as these are built in.
a fun way to eat up your 200 SMS for sure!
You only have to load the app for a few minutes, then never use it again. Not sure if you can delete it, but I suspect you can.
bc said 3:19PM on 1-26-2009
there's a FREE way to enable emoji, without jailbreaking your iPhone. no need to purchase anything.
see:
http://www.simonblog.com/2008/12/11/enable-emoji-icon-on-iphone-22-without-jailbreak/
not as convenient as the FrostySpace method, since with this free tip you get a line's worth of emoji with 1 keyclick and then have to delete the ones you don't want from the line. but ok for inserting the occasional emoji into text.
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quandmeme said 8:12PM on 1-26-2009
I just did this not knowing that it would insert that whole line. Worthless to me. (I only wanted it for texting.) Erasing contacts now.
I think about it and probably get frostyplace. Support them for $.99.
sax said 2:35PM on 1-26-2009
it's frostyplace and it's chinese.
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monkeys said 2:39PM on 1-26-2009
my friend said that sending when i sent a text with emoji to his 2.2 iphone, he could see the emoji, but also that the spacing of my text was all funky. anyone else seen this?
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BuddyBoy said 7:03AM on 1-27-2009
Yer this seems to be a thing cause my the emoji. I see it all the time.
surge said 2:41PM on 1-26-2009
you can install Emoji from Cydia for free...It enables the emoji icons on ur keybord on 2.2 firmware....Why buy it unless ur not jailbroken
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Simon Arch said 2:57PM on 1-26-2009
"ur keyboard"? Is that like an "ur-grue"?
André said 2:48PM on 1-26-2009
It works here, unfortunately very few phones in Europe have support for Emoji :(
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vanaheim said 2:55PM on 1-26-2009
FrostyPlace is Chinese!
Not a single Japanese-specific character in the page.
I've seen the icon in iTunes Store (a character "ice" over water) in Japan though. It indicates the shop is selling a teat (flavored/colored syrup over shaved ice).
Anyway it is true that e-moji means "picture/illustration+letter" but the feeder is not Japanese at all.
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CaptSaltyJack said 3:03PM on 1-26-2009
Tried on a 1st generation iPhone (non-3G). Failed. :( I followed the instructions exactly, I kept going through several RSS articles in FrostyPlace.. went back to keyboard settings, Japanese, no Emoji option. :(
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CaptSaltyJack said 3:08PM on 1-26-2009
Nevermind - I had to shut my phone off, turn it back on, then I went back to a couple FrostyPlace articles and then Emoji showed up in my Japanese keyboard options. :)
monkey_mad2 said 3:08PM on 1-26-2009
Ummm, us in the UK get 48 hours to watch our rentals in.
Woo, something we have and you want!
Great!
(realised we still don't have a non-garageband way to get iPhone ringtones today)
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monkey_mad2 said 3:11PM on 1-26-2009
Arghhhhhhhhhh, Bloomin' 1Password.
Anyway, any UK (or any other non-us, I guess) people make sure your keyboard is set to English not English UK otherwise it won't work - you can change it back after - spread this tip!
Bertil Holmberg said 4:16PM on 1-26-2009
I don't think you have to change the language of your iPhone. I managed to get the Emoji keyboard working on my Swedish phone.
Michał said 3:21PM on 1-26-2009
It works, although no one can receive it :D
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iVlad said 4:25PM on 1-26-2009
It works only on 2.2 iPhone and only ATT to ATT. My friends on T-Mobile iPhone could not see anything and so couldn't I.
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Cowfodder said 9:00PM on 1-26-2009
I call . I'm on a jailbroken 1st gen iPhone using t-mobile, and I have no problems. I used the emoji enabler from Cydia though.