Apple Emoji Turns 10
When entering the Japanese market in 2008, one key area of focus for Apple was including emoji support on the newly released iPhone 3G.
This emoji support came in the form of a software update known as iPhone OS 2.2 (iPhone OS is what is now known as iOS) that was released globally, although the emoji keyboard was restricted to the Japanese market only.
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At the time emoji support was first implemented, this was done in a way that was compatible with SoftBank (Apple’s iPhone release partner in Japan), but emoji support had yet to come to Unicode which would make the characters universally interchangable between devices, carriers and software platforms for the first time.
The font on iOS (nee iPhone OS) that includes all the emoji characters is called Apple Color Emoji and it has been around in various forms since 2008.
Originally containing 471 emojis for the Japanese market only, many of these original designs still largely resemble their modern counterparts.
See also: Swift Tricks: Emoji Flags.
Previously: Former Apple Intern Looks Back at Designing First Apple Emoji in 2008, Apple Color Emoji.
