Emojis have been a thing in phones since before there were smartphones. If you’re old enough, you may remember using things like a pager to craft smiley faces. When smarter flip phones came along, those digits began to take more shape, and eventually, the world’s first emojis were born.
Nowadays, they are an effective means of communication and they have grown in popularity to the point where entire conversations can be had with little more than a few words and a whole lot of emojis.
Emojis have taken on a life of their own, quickly replacing acronyms in social circles as a way to convey meaning without writing a paragraph.
There are thousands of them now, both with Apple devices and Android devices. But are they any different from one another? Are iPhone emojis the same as Android?
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Are iPhone Emojis The Same As Android?
Emojis on iPhones are crafted by Apple, with some emojis coming from third-party developers. They’re not the same as the ones you will find on Android devices. Both Apple and Android make their own unique emojis and they also design their emojis to look different. Most emojis will be interpreted correctly but sometimes, though it’s not common, an Android device will completely misinterpret an Apple emoji.
Standard emoji symbols on both platforms will express the same emotions but how they appear on each platform will differ. Apple and Android communicate with each other using a standard programming language called Unicode.
There’s no problem displaying fonts between Apple and Android because they have been designed to look identical on both platforms. Apple and Android do not design their emoji symbols to look identical so one platform may have to interpret the other’s emoji with the closest it has.
Some of the third-party developers that Apple uses for their emojis may line up with third-party developers that craft emojis for Android and sometimes they may not. Android uses third parties to develop its emojis as well.
If you’ve ever stopped to look at emoji comparisons on a top-of-the-line Android device and Apple’s latest iPhone (we’re using new smartphones to give a little graphical context here), you’ve probably noticed a difference in the two, even when comparing two emojis that mean and look similar.
Apple’s emojis tend to be more cartoonish and rounded out with an almost 3D aspect to them. Android emojis look bolder but lack the 3D quality and rounded look and feel.
Can Android Users See iPhone Emojis?
Android users can see iPhone emojis but they will have to download an app to do it. There are several emoji apps out there that correctly convey emojis between the two competing smartphone types, however, there are also a few available Android apps that are purely Apple Emoji content.
What you have to do when you open these apps for the first time, is download a keyboard that is associated with Apple Emojis. You may have to do a specific search to find just the right one. The apps do not immediately have the capability of sending and receiving Apple emojis.
In other words, if you want it, you have to download it. These emoji keyboards work by overlaying themselves on your traditional Android keyboard or operating as an altogether different keyboard alternative.
If you use them, however, you have to be careful anytime you jump on board with a “free” app, as you will have to deal with ads or constant pressure to make in-app purchases, which is fairly typical of all free apps, not just these.
These aren’t the only three apps available for sending Apple emojis either. They just happen to be three of the more popular selections that are available at the moment.
Do Apple Emojis Show Up On Android?
Apple emojis definitely show up on Android devices, at least they do in most cases. The problem is, that they may not always show up in the right way. Your most basic emojis, the ones that have been with us for the last decade or so, will usually interpret just fine.
However, both Apple and Android devices have been consistently adding more emojis to their already insanely large emoji libraries. Many of these emojis are a lot more complicated in what they are attempting to convey than the simplicity of a smiley face.
To complicate matters further, Samsung has its own emojis and even though Samsung devices operate under the Android ecosystem, Samsung’s own emojis are often radically different than standard Android emojis, which are often updated by Google quite separately from Samsung.
The greatness and the problem with Androids is their universal appeal, which allows you an immense amount of creative and customization freedom.
At the same time, it also causes problems when you have competing platforms, such as Google Pixel phones and Samsung phones, not working on the same page.
What Happens If You Send An iPhone Emoji To A Non-iPhone?
If you send an iPhone Emoji to a non-iPhone, most of the time, the receiving (non-Apple) smartphone will receive the emoji just fine. This is especially true if the emoji is pretty standard, like a laughing face, smiley face, or a crying face.
Other times, it’s not the same. For instance, the dancing female emoji for Apple features a woman in a flowing red dress. If you send that emoji to a non-Samsung Android phone, it comes out as a yellow blob, shaped roughly like Mr. Potato Head.
If you send that same dancing emoji to a Samsung Android phone, it comes out as a dancing kid.
Stock Android smartphones feature a slightly different-looking clapping hands emoji while sending those clapping hands to a Samsung Android comes out as a kid raising both of his hands, a meaning that may be difficult to understand by the recipient.
Another example would be Apple’s “Nerd Face” emoji. Sent to a Samsung device, it comes out as a slightly more reserved nerd face, but the translation is not lost. However, send it to a stock Android phone and it comes out as a laughing face with glasses, by no means an implication that this was a “nerd” face.
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Do Android Emojis Look Different?
As we briefly touched on above, Android mostly has all of the same emojis as Apple, with some minor differences here or there. In terms of how they look, Apple holds the graphical advantage.
Apple iPhones and iPad emojis look much more “vivacious” for lack of a better term. The iPhone emojis are more rounded and look as if they could easily become animated at any moment.
Android’s emojis, on the other hand, lack that stand-out quality. Fortunately, for Android users, you have more options when it comes to downloading a variety of different emoji apps.
Many of these emoji apps have a lot more aesthetic appeal than Android’s stock emojis.
What Emojis Do Androids Have That iPhones Don’t?
Android smartphones did a lot of things over the years that made Apple fans jealous, however, emojis weren’t one of them. Android has been playing catch up with Apple for years when it comes to emojis.
In 2016, for the first time, Android supported more emojis than iOS thanks to its speedier support for Unicode 9.0.
It would be difficult to say if there are some emojis out there that Android has that Apple doesn’t because of the sheer volume of emojis available to compare. Today, Android users probably do not have the amount of emojis that you will find on an Apple device.
Apple delved heavily into emojis over the last 5 or 6 years and it has paid off, especially with Apple’s focus on AR combinations with a variety of both set and customizable emojis.
Does iPhone Have Emojis That Android Doesn’t?
Like the above question, it’s a difficult thing to answer without laying out an entire grid of all the compiled emojis from Android against all of the compiled emojis from Apple and selectively going through them, one by one.
Apple has been a fierce proponent of and contributor to the world of emojis for a long time. Considering the fact that Android has always been playing catch up with Apple in terms of emojis, there is a strong likelihood that Apple has more, at least for now, with both brands flip-flopping over time.
There is also the fact that you have to consider what exactly constitutes an emoji? Once you get past the faces and people, there are still huge lists of things like buildings, scenery, vehicles, animals, planets, and more. Are those emojis? They certainly fall under the category of emojis.
If you include all of them as well, the process of comparing “haves” and have-nots” is even more complicated.
Who Has More Emojis Apple Or Android?
Nowadays, Android no longer needs to play catch up, as things are becoming much more universal and streamlined. There are times when Apple will have more emojis than Android and there are times when Android may have more emojis than Apple.
However, it’s only ever temporary and depends on which platform updates their devices with the newly released emojis of the day. This is all thanks to the Unicode Consortium, which routinely releases new and updated emojis.
Once the consortium releases an update, it’s just a matter of which platform embraces them first. This is as close to the term “universal” as these platforms are going to get. Apple takes the Unicode updates and creates its own emojis based on them, using Apple’s proprietary software.
Android does something similar. The ultimate effect is that there are still times when sending an emoji from an Apple device will show up on an Android device all out of whack. So to the degree that any one platform has more emojis than the other boils down to simple timing.
Who Has Better Emojis iPhone Or Android?
The debate about which one is better, Android or Apple, has been raging since both of these platforms rose to prominence. There is no easy answer as far as an overall comparison is concerned. The argument can be made (and it’s a good one) that Android allows you to have more control over your phone.
The opposing argument (also a good one) is that Apple devices are more slick, refined, and built with the best, premium components that are currently available. However, when it comes to emojis, Apple is simply the clear winner.
When you place Apple emojis and stock Android emojis next to one another, you can see the difference is pretty profound in that Apple’s emojis look three-dimensional, with more visual pop. Android emojis are flat and, although they are a little more on the bold side than Apple’s, they simply lack that visual pop.
Samsung is the fly in the ointment. Their Android version of emojis is much closer to what you get with an Apple device. However, they still lack the visual pop that you get with an Apple device. Samsung does a much better job than what you get with stock Android phones.
Is There Any Way To Get Apple Emojis On Android And Visa Versa?
We mentioned this briefly above, as far as Android smartphones are concerned. All you need to do on an Android is download one of the above-listed apps from the bullet points. These apps give you a wide variety of emoji keyboards to choose from, including Apple emojis.
With iPhones, it works the exact same way. You will need to download an iPhone app emoji keyboard. There are a limited number of them, but almost all of them will have some variation of either stock Android emojis keyboards or Samsung Android emoji keyboards.
While you can’t force your iPhone or Android to send the other platform’s emojis, due to their own, individual software, you can do a run-around by downloading the apps to accomplish the same thing.
Can Android Like iPhone Messages?
Once again, you’re dealing with something that is not universal and, as is the case in most things, everyone jumps on Apple to change their ways and be more universal. Apple has iMessage, which is its own text messaging client and it works far better and more efficiently than Android texting does.
The problem is, that everybody wants it to be universal, which would require Apple to dumb theirs down. Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about responding with a reaction from an Android phone to an iPhone.
That’s because Apple will not send an iMessage to an Android phone. Rather, Apple uses a standard SMS message for communication between iPhones and Androids. That means that you can send a reaction on your Android phone and an iPhone will properly pick it up.
Only recently has the reverse been true. Now, Android devices will recognize reactions sent from an iPhone, even though it is sent as a standard SMS.
