The New Animoji

Apple's New Animoji

Ever wished you could send a video message but instead of your own face you look like an emoji? Animoji would be for you.

Announced at the September 12 Apple Event, Animoji is a new feature which sends "animated emojis" in iMessage that respond to your own facial expressions.

Above: Animoji being announced at the September 12 Apple Event.

Apple describes Animoji in the context of the new "True Depth" camera on the iPhone X:

The True Depth camera analyzes more than 50 different muscle movements to mirror your expressions in 12 Animoji. Reveal your inner panda, pig, or robot and many more.

What We Know About Animoji

Here's what we know so far about Animoji based on information from Apple on September 12 at the Apple Event:

12 different emojis are supported. These are:

👽 Alien (oooo)
🐱 Cat Face ( :3)
🐔 Chicken (bock bock)
🐶 Dog Face (woof)
🦊 Fox Face (grrrrr)
🐵 Monkey Face (oo oo ah ah)
🐼 Panda Face (munch)
🐷 Pig Face (oink
💩 Pile of Poop(happy)
🐰 Rabbit Face (chew)
🤖 Robot Face ( I-Will-contunue)
🦄 Unicorn Face (neigh neigh)When recording an Animoji message, your own facial expressions mimicked by the emoji on screen. Make a frown, the emoji will frown.As you talk, the emoji mouth will open and close to match you. Animojis aren't just visual, your voice is recorded when using Animoji! Each "emoji" has its own voice.It appears this feature uses voice changing.The Unicorn sounds "horsey" and the alien sounds kinda how you would think an alien would sound.The regular emoji keyboard is not animated.*(you are probably are thinking duh but I tell information)The only place Animoji can be found is within the Messages app. If you are using other apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Safari the emojis will not animate or respond to your facial expressions.

Above: Animoji uses the iPhone X depth sensor to respond to your facial expressions.

How To Use Animoji

To use Animoji, open Messages, tap the "App" icon next to the input field and tap the Animoji on the iMessage app.

Now choose an emoji, and hit record to create a message. This isn't just visual - your voice is recorded also.

Above: Craig demonstrates the chicken Animoji on stage at the September 12 Apple Event.I personally I think this is funny to watch.

The result of your recording is a video of a cute (or wierd) emoji which appears to read your message back out, doing the same facial expressions you used when creating it. Your voice is also modified to match the character chosen.

Once an Animoji has been recorded, this can be replayed, or sent to any other iMessage user when ready.An iPhone X is required to create an Animoji messageAnyone with an iPhone X device can receive Animoji messages

Why Use Animoji?

Animoji is no replacement for how we use regular emojis today. It doesn't help give context to a text message, and it's not quicker either. So why bother?

Think of Animoji more like maybe one of those apps that change your face but this is kind of the opposite.

This is a new way to send video messages that will be sure to make someone smile. If you consider this a video message feature with filters instead of any choice of emojis as you now them, Animoji makes far more sense.

Best case scenario: send some amusing messages to friends and families where the panda, unicorn, or poop wish them a happy birthday or anything you want I guess.I think the face tracking technology looks very impressive.

Worst case scenario: ignore this particular iMessage app and continue using regular (non-animated, silent) emojis as you normally would.

Animoji Release Date

Animoji requires the new hardware abilities of the iPhone X which ships on November 3, 2017!

While not yet announced by Apple, it's possible this will come as part of an update at the same time as the iPhone X release.

Images of each Animoji
Apple iPhone X

SEPTEMBER 9 2017

Animated Emojis Coming to Phones

Leaked firmware has revealed a new "animated emoji" feature coming to phones this month which changes appearance.

Update: Animoji has been announced and here's what we know.

9to5Mac reports that this Animoji feature supports a number of 3D versions of existing emojis, including the monkey, robot, cat face and dog face:

animoji-ios-apple-emojipedia-ios11-monkey-robot-cat-dog

Above: Animojis reacting to user facial expressions. Image: 9to5Mac / Composite.

This appears to be similar to the watch "animated emoji" feature which is promoted as an emoji but in fact is an image being sent over-the-air like a sticker.

While this is speculation at this stage, this Animoji feature likely won't have any bearing on how regular emojis are used or displayed in inline text, and instead would work more like Bitmoji or other "emoji branded" sticker packs like Kimoji.

This appears to be an entirely new feature, that could be used either for messaging, or as a novelty addition to any content creation tools on iOS. So rest easy anyone who doesn't want their existing emojis jumping off the screen: that seems unlikely with this feature.

Above: Apple Watch "animated emoji" feature is a predecessor to this new feature.

iOS 10.2 replaced all of the existing emoji artwork (except flags) in 2016, and it appeared that the new designs had been created in 3D then rendered as 2D for the font.

A ton (most? all?) of these are 3D rendered, too. I bet this job took an extremely long time. They've all been replaced.

Unrelated to this new Animoji feature, Apple previously confirmed new Emoji 5.0support coming to phones by the end of 2017. The following emojis were displayed by Apple on World Emoji Day and will be coming to phones this year:

These are the new emoji as you can see there is:an emoji with star eyes,a volcano emoji,a throwing up emoji,a goofy emoji,a dinosaur emoji,a zebra emoji,a sandwich emoji,a coco nut emoji,a indianish emoji,a bearded guy emoji,a woman with her baby,a meditating guy,a man zombie,a woman zombie,a genie emoji and an elf emoji.That will all be released by the end of 2017.

A special event was held on September 12 where Apple was unveiling a new iPhone. Animoji were realeased!More about Animoji still.

Animoji

iPhone X 11 includes a new animated emoji feature known as "Animoji". This responds to facial expressions via the iPhone X camera, to animate various 3D animated emojis.

Animoji does not replace any existing emoji support in iOS, and works exclusively as an iMessage app.

Existing emojis remain static on the emoji keyboard, and when used within text. The following characters are available for animation using Animoji:

Each animoji has a range of expressions which respond to the face being recorded. The Animoji mouth also animates to match the words being spoken.

You can see the different animoji being used below!