Emoji. Cute, Japanese emoticons for iChat and for your iPhone and iPod Touch.

21 June 2009 Filed in: Writing

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Emoji (絵文字) is the Japanese term for the picture characters or emoticons used in Japanese wireless messages and webpages. Originally meaning pictograph, the word literally means e “picture” + moji “letter”. — Wikipedia

Aren’t these little emoticons simply adorable!? The good news is, that you can use them on your Mac and on your iPhone or iPod touch. You just have to activate them.

There Several Applications That Activate Emoji Icons

spell-number To activate Emoji icons, I installed Spell Number, a free utility that helps users write out numbers as in cheque writing protection and turns on Emoji icons.

emojiicons-2 There are several 99¢ Emoji enabler applications (link to App Store) in the App Store that enable Emoji icons on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Remember, Emoji only works from iPhone to iPhone.

Most of these applications simply enable Emoji icons, but there are some apps that offer a bit more functionality.

Typing Genius (link to App Store) is also a touch typing trainer.

XEmoji (link to App Store) gives you a description of each icon as well as the hex code.

Activating Emoji Icons On Your iPhone or iPod Touch

Once you have picked an application that turns on Emoji icons, follow these steps.

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Use the application for a short while to start the process. (If you are using Spell Number, here is a link to the Easter Egg code, enter the code.) Exit the application.
Go to Settings > General > International > Keyboards > Japanese. Turn on Emoji.
To use the Emoji keyboard in Mail, SMS, Notes or any other application, tap on the World/Globe key next to the space bar on your iPhone or iPod Touch keyboard.
The Emoji keyboard has several tabs for the different categories of icons. Scroll sideways for more icons.

How To Activate Emoji Icons For iChat

Finally, if you want to turn on Emoji icons for instant messaging in iChat, you can download Emoji for iChat by Einar Andersson & Tor Rauden Källstigen.

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