Today is the 10th Anniversary of Emoji on iPhone

On November 21, 2008, Apple released iPhone OS 2.2 to users in Japan, introducing an emoji keyboard and emoji characters for the first time ever on an iPhone. At the time, the latest iPhone to be released was the iPhone 3G, which launched in June 2008 with iPhone OS 2.

The emoji keyboard in 2008 (left) vs 2018 (right), via Jeremy Burge/Emojipedia
Emojipedia has provided an in-depth look today at the first iPhone emojis, explaining that despite Apple's decision to restrict the emoji keyboard to Japan in iPhone OS 2.2, some apps unlocked the keyboard for users outside of Japan. This was the first time that third-party apps were even available on iPhone, since iPhone OS 2.2 also introduced the App Store.

The launch within iPhone OS 2.2 predated emoji support in the Unicode Standard, which now makes the characters universally interchangeable between devices and operating systems.

Apple's 2008 emoji implementation was based on the set used by Japanese carrier Softbank, and the influence on many of these designs is clear.

Even moreso—much the the chagrin of some—Apple's emoji font has gone on to dominate public expectation of what an emoji should look like.

While Apple does not dictate which emojis are approved by Unicode, it is reasonable to wonder that without Apple's strong color emoji support in these earlier years, whether we would see it as the cultural phenomenon it has become today.

Emojis then gained traction in iOS 4 and Mac OS X Lion, but these were still not widely supported across regions. Not until iOS 5 in 2011 did Apple introduce the emoji keyboard setting that allowed anyone around the world to access the characters by tapping the Globe icon on the iOS keyboard. In 2012, Apple introduced 376 new emojis with iOS 6 and switched to Unicode-compatible code points for the emojis.

iPhone OS 2.2 emojis from 2008
One of the latest updates on the emoji timeline came in 2015, when Apple introduced new emojis for the first time in three years with iOS 8.3. This was the year that Apple also enabled the emoji keyboard to all iOS users by default, whereas before each user had to go into the Settings app, find the keyboard settings, and manually add the emoji keyboard.

In total, the number of emojis has increased from 471 in 2008 to 2,776 in 2018, thanks to the introduction of swappable genders and skin tones. Head over to Emojipedia for more details about the emoji anniversary, and to check out a long list of changes that some of the emojis have had over the years.

Tag: emoji

Top Rated Comments

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adamjackson

10 months ago

At the beginning we had to install a certain app to enable the emoji keyboard in iOS.

FrostyPlace!

This post reminded me to dig up this SMS convo I had with a friend on January 23rd of 2009:

I was quite literally blown away receiving these. ...also damn the iPhone 3GS had a TINY screen!

August 2008 Home Screen:

Rating: 10 Votes

cocky jeremy

10 months ago

I like that we have them, but two things:

1) There are too many that are too similar
2) We need a better way to organize them

There are a few categories I don't even touch. I wish I could just hide them in the keyboard.

Rating: 9 Votes

e1me5

10 months ago

10 years of wasted developing resources, according to some people.

Rating: 6 Votes

iReality85

10 months ago

It's interesting that it took a while for Emoji to catch on. Emoji appeared on the iPhone in 2008, but I didn't see lots of people using them until 2011-2012 or so.

Now imagine, if you were me, being 16 in 2001, and spending a year in Japan as a high school exchange student. The only type of cellphone I had been familiar with up until that point was my parent’s late 90s era Startac (still an iconic phone). I get to Japan and everyone — literally everyone, even my same age classmates — were using colorful flip phones with color screens and sending these things called “emojis” that I had never seen before. 3G was even being rolled out.

Going back to the States a year later in 2002 was like stepping back in time.

Rating: 6 Votes

Jaytee89

10 months ago

The first thing I do when setting up a new device is disable the emoji keyboard. I no longer have to see them and get a bigger easier to hit “.?123” button. Win-win.

I never even really used emoticons back in the 00’s. Not really sure how emoji are taken so seriously with international standards and stuff, it’s hilarous to me..

That’s why I prefer the keyboard on the X and beyond.

Rating: 4 Votes

adamjackson

10 months ago

Eww... look at that status bar. EDGE.

Meh, 10 years later and this is my home Internet connection:

I leave my house and drive to work and sometimes I see 3G. I live out int he woods now though...I just thought we'd have nationwide 3G by 2018 but we're still really far behind.

iJustine is your friend? Or you have a friend with the exact same name as her

"friend" is a loose term. We were AIM/iChat buddies back in 2001 and friends on Spymac. We stayed in touch until around 2011 when she stopped returning my texts or emails. I don't really blame her for that and we had a good run as far as time-wasting AIM buddies go. The thing is, when people become famous, everyone wants something from them and their social capacity is still limited to that of what a human can take as far as interactions go. She needed nothing from me and I wanted nothing from her (as far as business deals go) so why spend time with someone who can't do anything for her when she has millions of people in business who can throw money at her. Nothing wrong with that but the time we spent texting could be better spent with someone like MKB and he actually brings her revenue and an audience. we had lunch a few times, I introduced her to people at Macworld, Twit and Justin.TV (I told Michael and Justin to reach out to her and offer her a live-streaming setup back when I was doing it). I have nothing against her at all, she really is a nerd and a geek and it hurts me when I see comments about her being a bimbo idiot. She's really a great person and comes from simple roots and just loves Apple and the Mac...but I haven't spoken to her in 8 years so not much to say about her now.

Rating: 4 Votes

coolfactor

10 months ago

Emojis are critical to expressing emotion in typed communications. How many times has someone taken what you've written the wrong way, where an emoji may have tweaked their interpretation? They play an important role that text can not do alone. Not just a gimmick.
[doublepost=1542822891][/doublepost]

The Western world may think they are leaders of the planet, but they are so far behind compared to some of the older cultures. The US is only now just catching up with widespread chip-and-pin bank cards, which is based on SmartCard technology used widely 20 years ago in Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_card

"The first mass use of the cards was as a telephone card ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_card') for payment in French payphones ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payphone'), starting in 1983."

The Mac itself didn't even launch until 1984. Puts some perspective on things. European and Eastern countries are way ahead of the US technologically.

Rating: 4 Votes

Tozovac

10 months ago

Dang. I almost forgot how ugly this icons were back then

Speak for yourself. At least some icons were breathtaking to look at. These were works of art in my opinion, compared to today’s which look like any talented fifth grader could create.

Rating: 4 Votes

zorinlynx

10 months ago

It's interesting that it took a while for Emoji to catch on. Emoji appeared on the iPhone in 2008, but I didn't see lots of people using them until 2011-2012 or so. I remember when I discovered them; someone had used the poop emoji on a flyer at a convention and my mind was blown that this unicode character existed.

Rating: 4 Votes