Emoji on its way out of the App Store

For the past month or so, developers have been taking advantage of an opening in the iPhone SDK to enable Emoji emoticons on non-Japanese iPhones, without having to resort to jailbreaking. While I was a little taken aback by the fascination and little mini-market that sprouted up around Emoji activation, it's clear that the public likes its icons.

Unfortunately, the Emoji free for all may be over. Gary, from Typing Genius, e-mailed us this morning and he let us know that Apple is cracking down on Emoji activation outside of Japan. According to Gary, Apple is forbidding Emoji-only apps (Emotifun and iEmoji have both been removed from the App Store) and requiring developers for apps that do more than just Emoji (like Typing Genius -- iTunes link) to provide an Emoji-free update immediately.

In regards to Typing Genius, Gary says that:

* Existing Typing Genius users who have already unlocked emoji will not be affected when Apple remove apps from the App Store
* Emoji unlock will remain intact for users who upgrade to a newer version of Typing Genius (without the unlock) later on

So if you want to get your Emoji on, it's probably best to act sooner rather than later. Pictographs have been removed from the App Store. Oh, the humanity!

Thanks Gary

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Source: http://www.tuaw.com/tag/emoji

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Open Source iPhone App Store SDK

For the past month or so, developers have been taking advantage of an opening in the iPhone SDK to enable Emoji emoticons on non-Japanese...

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Keiichi

The iEmoji app is still available on iTunes... I just picked it up today. ?_?

April 17 2009 at 9:24 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Bendizle

I got my emojis for free from that spell number app...i was going to download the update when it said -removes emojis....and i was like hell no....

this is really disappointing i mean who cares if iphone is the only mobile device that can see emojis (firefox btw has a add-on that enables emojis its called greasemonkey or something like that) you would think that would BOOST iphone sales....people would be like 'OMFG!! EMOJIS!!!' bam 10million units sold... this emoji idea is great, and i miss having them ever since i moved away from japan.... :(

March 03 2009 at 6:45 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Alain

Really not cool from Apple... Anyway, there's no way I can stop using my Emojis î•î„…î‡î„—

March 02 2009 at 12:39 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

CaptSaltyJack

It seems silly that Apple would prevent emoji use in the US. I call shenanigans, and say that this Gary fellow is BS'ing to try to boost sales of his app.

March 02 2009 at 11:44 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Lars

You know, this is the most plausible explanation I've come across. What's beyond me is that it comes from a knowledgable end-user and not Apple. They could save themselves some bad press and angry users by simply explaining the reasons.

Now they just come across like no-fun a-holes.

March 01 2009 at 4:57 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Lars's comment

Lars

Hm, with "this" I ment Mike O'Connors explanation. I did press reply under his contribution, it ended up at the end. Ah well.

March 01 2009 at 10:29 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

MJZimmer88

There is another free application, called "Spell Number" that is an actually app that spells out numbers... if you type in "9876543.21" into that program, it will also unlock emoji for free.

February 28 2009 at 5:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to MJZimmer88's comment

Luna Lovegood

Best tip ever I've ever read at TUAW, and it didn't even come courtesy of a TUAW blogger. Thanks!

March 02 2009 at 12:58 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dave

Personally the only reason I downloaded the free Emoji program was because I knew this wouldn't last. I'm glad I have it. It's nice for text messages and e-mails to my wife.

February 28 2009 at 5:05 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Kento Ito

Even jailbreak is not safe, ever since Apple have declared Jailbreaking illegal (and yes, Apple has way to disable jailbroken phones, remember, that iPhone has KILL SWITCH)

February 28 2009 at 4:15 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Kento Ito's comment

Dave

Huh? The iPhone has a kill switch so that a malicious application that somehow gets through the App Store approval process can be shutdown to prevent wide-scale problems.

Jailbreaking is another story, and, while it's an on-going cat and mouse game, Apple is typically one-step behind because the open source community generally releases updates to the public more frequently.

It's also relatively easy to disable the "kill switch" with a jailbroken phone.

February 28 2009 at 5:03 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Fritz Laurel

I honestly don't understand either side of this.

February 27 2009 at 11:37 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

DerFlash

Luckily so far my IRC chat app 'Rooms' has been overlooked by Apple! î„…î—î– ... I mean ... *yey* *g* *smile*

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/ba5mjp

February 27 2009 at 7:31 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply