An interview with an Apple emoji designer

(shadycharacters.co.uk)

105 points | by nate 3 days ago

11 comments

  • raincole 7 hours ago
    Off topic: Perhaps it's just me, but I have a pet peeve about emojis in anything formal. Even before LLMs, I instinctively took a repo less seriously when README.md had emojis in every section. And now LLMs have popularized that style, it's the first signal for me to vibe-detect AI repos.

    I do use emojis. I love them, actually, but only in message apps.

    • frollogaston 1 hour ago
      I don't like to see them anywhere. They were cool for a while back in version 1.0 when there were a few that everyone knew and used in creative ways, before Apple* decided to make so many that you need a search bar. It's kinda like Pokémon. At this point I only get them in text messages from old people.

      * yeah I know technically the Unicode Consortium, but Apple pushed it hard

      • stouset 51 minutes ago
        Emoji (and their predecessor, emoticons) are IMO the greatest new feature for written language that has happened in generations. Eschewing them is certainly a choice you can make, but I personally think it's a poor one.

        Authors can now bundle emotional sentiment in text communication. Not being able to do this in the past was usually just an annoyance but could occasionally turn out to be extremely problematic. Countless miscommunications have occurred due to recipients not correctly interpreting an author's tone, and we now have a tool that can help reduce or potentially eliminate those misunderstandings. It's early days, so we're still seeing teething issues: different emoji sets conveying subtly different cues and evolving social norms around their use. But they have incredible potential.

        • frollogaston 35 minutes ago
          We already had that ;)

          Again emoji 1.0 was good. You can convey what you need with a small subset of that even. But even if modern computers were limited to emoji 1.0, I suspect they'd be spammed to the point of losing meaning anyway.

        • hollerith 46 minutes ago
          And yet you are here, a site that disallows almost all emoji.
    • bombcar 2 hours ago
      I only like emojis that HN doesn't yet filter.

      Join me! đ“‚ş

    • Affric 3 hours ago
      Emoji are fun to use because they make written communication more human… corporations or LLMs using them just comes off as insincere.
    • geophph 5 hours ago
      Not just you!
    • thenthenthen 7 hours ago
      Or SSID’s
  • 9dev 9 hours ago
    > We mapped almost 1:1 to SoftBank’s set, though Apple chose to omit a few of the more risqué ones.

    Which are these risqué emojis mentioned here? I don't think I have ever seen any that are even slightly graphic, which is probably why all the emoji slang conventions have spread like fire (Aubergine, Peach, etc.)

    • cryzinger 6 hours ago
      I was going to say that the love hotel emoji was the only one I could think of, but in the process of trying to find the emojipedia link (https://emojipedia.org/love-hotel) I found a Reddit thread that leads to a now-defunct blog post:

      12 years ago - Apple removes beer, wine, love hotel, and other emojis from insertion palette in Messages app https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/2qqaya/apple_removes...

      The blog it links to is dead, so here's an archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20150312182931/http://blog.getem...

    • edm0nd 8 hours ago
      Its kinda odd how a lot of the major tech companies have self censored emojis like they are some savior of the planet for doing so.

      For example the gun emoji by turning it into a water pistol instead of a real looking firearm handgun lol.

      WOW THEY SURE CAUSED COUNTLESS LIVES TO BE SAVED W THAT ONE SINGLE MOVE!

      • Cider9986 5 hours ago
        Stickers are for you. Plenty of uncensored content and as soon as you send one from one of your packs, the recipient can start using them anywhere as well.

        https://signalstickers.org/

      • pc86 5 hours ago
        It's virtue signaling - nonsense from the same people who unironically say things like "lived experience" and "emotional labor." It shows they're part of a particular group, so they're Good, and if you're not, you're Bad.
    • pimlottc 8 hours ago
      That's a good question. Comparing the Softbank emoji from June 2008 [0] and the initial batch of Apple emoji that shipping in iPhone OS 2.2 (Nov 2008) [1], it doesn't look like there are any missing at all, it's a perfect 1:1 mapping.

      0: https://emojipedia.org/softbank/2008

      1: https://emojipedia.org/apple/iphone-os-2.2

      • frollogaston 1 hour ago
        Maybe edit rather than omit? Apple changed the people kissing with actual lip contact, the 1910s-looking cancan dancers, and the stink lines on the poop.
    • stringfood 9 hours ago
      long eggplant and a smaller Pinching Hand emoji were probably the first to go
  • holistio 11 hours ago
    There is still no walnut emoji. Blonde-haired, black-skinned pregnant man? Yes. Walnut? No.
    • wpm 11 hours ago
      Be the petty, small change you wish to see in the world: https://joypixels.com/blog/how-to-submit-an-emoji-to-unicode
      • holistio 10 hours ago
        I will be. Thanks.

        By the way, Walnut Creek is less than 100 miles from Cupertino.

        I love walnuts.

        • CGMthrowaway 3 hours ago
          I'll bet you could find a place named after most any nut within 100 miles of Cupertino.
      • Jtarii 10 hours ago
        Gotta love websites that hijack basic browser functions, in this case forcing smooth scroll on.
        • frollogaston 1 hour ago
          Yeah I felt that and left so fast, forget that
        • embedding-shape 9 hours ago
          Seems to be some sort of design agency or similar, it's basically internet-law at this point that those always fuck with the scroll movements of your browser, for some reason.
        • hollerith 1 hour ago
          Gotta love browsers that let websites hijack basic browser functions.
    • hbn 9 hours ago
      I love the pregnant man emoji, I use it all the time after a big meal
    • j1000 11 hours ago
      Also no thief emoji or pirate emoji. Can someone enlighten me why we don't have it?
      • frollogaston 1 hour ago
        Well there's a pirate flag
      • dagmx 11 hours ago
        Simply because nobody has successfully pitched the Unicode group to add one.

        Anyone can pitch new emoji, they just have to go through the fairly easy but strict formal process.

        • blanched 11 hours ago
          Alex Schmidt, a humor writer (formerly of Cracked and others) did this process for the bison emoji. I enjoyed his “miniseries” about it: https://www.bisonemojipodcast.com/
          • basch 10 hours ago
            does the reverse notebooklm exist yet that turns podcasts into longform journalism?
      • hbn 9 hours ago
        I was looking for a pirate emoji like 5 minutes ago. I'm sure it's not the first time but I'm super surprised that still isn't in there. Seems so obvious.
      • wvbdmp 10 hours ago
        What’s next, a cowboy emoji? A ninja emoji? But seriously, as much as I like emojis, I kind of feel like they should stick to emotions. Maybe other intangible things. They’re hard to convey verbally (and succinctly), simple concrete nouns are good for a bit of fun and for UI icons, but really not very useful if we’re being honest. Unless you’re texting with a lizard, or my lazy elementary-school niece who shouldn’t really have a phone anyway…
        • customguy 4 hours ago
          If we add 26 more emojis, one for each letter, we could use them to spell out all sorts of words - emotions, objects, anything!
          • jtolmar 1 hour ago
            26 emojis? You could do the entire bestiary from the original Rogue with that!
        • holistio 10 hours ago
          Or you're texting with people whose native language uses a logographic system.
    • asdff 7 hours ago
      No more gun emoji. Humanity could not be trusted with the cartoon revolver emoji. Take your squirtgun, citizen.
    • helterskelter 6 hours ago
      We got the mpreg emoji instead of a chainsaw, which makes me feel like we need an emoji lobbying group for things like sex, drugs, sawed-off shotguns and jury nullification.
    • joshmn 4 hours ago
      Been waiting for seahorse myself.
    • carrozo 9 hours ago
      still no Guillotine Emoji either, although not for a lack of trying.

      https://www.carrozo.com/guillotine-emoji

  • ollien 10 hours ago
    If the author is reading this, the hyperlink to the book in the first paragraph is broken. Looks like it's attempting to direct you to an absolute url that was meant to be relative.

        <a href="https://books/face-with-tears-of-joy">
  • thenthenthen 7 hours ago
    Modifying the Universal: a seminal piece on emoji’s and possibly why/how from a humanities perspective: https://youtu.be/ZP2bQ_4Q7DY?si=TIl4Zhs2X2ZgBJfY
  • amelius 12 hours ago
    In case anyone is actually interested in the emoji:

    https://emojipedia.org/apple

    • Aissen 11 hours ago
      More specifically, it was this set: https://emojipedia.org/apple/iphone-os-2.2

      Interesting tidbit:

      > Emoji support required iPhone OS 2.2 and a SoftBank SIM card.

      • TazeTSchnitzel 9 hours ago
        These are very nostalgic. The way Apple's emoji look has subtly changed since then.
      • amelius 11 hours ago
        To be honest, the images look like things I've seen a hundred times over in comic books and not much more original than GenAI.
        • reaperducer 10 hours ago
          not much more original than GenAI.

          What exactly do you think the "GenAI" trained on?

        • throawayonthe 10 hours ago
          is that not sorta the point? i don't get the genai reference
  • dwflanagan 8 hours ago
    I just finished Keith Houston's previous book _Empire of the Sum_, a history of calculators, I'll be reading this next.
  • aforty 10 hours ago
    So cool to get the background story on this. I remember adding the Japanese keyboard here in the US just so I could get access to emojis.
  • Tepix 11 hours ago
    Are the emojis on Apple (macOS, iOS etc) vector graphics these days?
  • ebbi 3 hours ago
    > and then through to Steve Jobs for final approval

    I miss Steve Jobs

  • NoSalt 11 hours ago
    Why does that site feel like I am reading typed text on paper?