Software Update via Emoji

Jeremy Burge has a fun post on Emojipedia showing all the new emojis Apple is adding/changing with the upcoming iOS 14.5 update. One note he makes is the way Apple continues to brand its emoji with Apple products. For instance, the headphone emoji now looks very much like AirPods Max.

I don’t begrudge Apple this. If I had my way, the Apple book emoji would look like a MacSparky Field Guide. 😍

However, I do note how Apple continues to use new emojis in point iOS updates to encourage folks to update. For all of the non-nerds out there, new emoji is the world’s biggest 🥕 when it comes to updates.

The 2018 Emoji

Emoji are increasingly a bigger deal to me. And I say that non-ironically. I recently sent an octogenarian client an email telling her that her corporate minutes were done and she responded by sending me a text message with a smiling face and heart eyes. That was it.

As text messaging and email have taken over for in-person and voice communications, emoji do fill a role to add context to words. I use them a lot more than I used to.

All that said, the people in charge of Emoji have announced 150+ new emoji and Emogipedia made a cool video showing them off. You can probably expect these in the first major update to iOS 12.

Here are my official awards:

Favorite overall: Superhero
Runner-up for favorite: Pirate Flag
Favorite new animal: Llama
Favorite new food: Cupcake!
Best new emoji for use in emergency situation: Toilet Paper
Social Justice Award: Red Hair
Most awkwardly familiar: White Hair
Happiest new Emoji: Partying Face
Most likely to be misused: Bone

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TextExpander Snippets for Fun and Shenanigans

I enjoyed this post over at TextExpander.com showing off some of the more fun tricks you can pull off with TextExpander. I would add to this that the ability to add emojis with keyboard shortcuts is pretty useful and more than a parlor trick. I’ve done something similar but use shorter abbreviations than recommended in the linked post. For instance, when I type “:tu”, TextExpander autofills a thumbs-up emoji: 👍🏻.

I find myself using these to respond to text messages and even simple emails all the time, and assigning your favorite emoji to TextExpander shortcuts can save you a lot of time.