Me: Weekend climbing, go to the buckle of 1
Friend:
I:???
Friend:: The sun is almost gone, don't go
If you see the above conversation on an Android or Windows device like I do, you should see three contentless, meaningless squares.
In fact, the three squares sent by friends are the three emoji emojis of the iOS 15.4 update, but because Android and other devices lack these emoticons, what you see is only empty "tofu blocks".
Many Android users will encounter such "tofu blocks" when surfing and chatting on the Internet, especially when iOS friends around them test the new version of the updated Emoji emoji, it is simply "AE86 up the mountain - send tofu is coming".
This is a language barrier that has existed between Android and iOS for a long time, and now Google has decided to fill this "emoji gap".
Where did it come from ?
Unconsciously, Emoji emojis have become an indispensable part of our online communication, according to the Unicode Alliance, 92% of the world's Internet users have used Emoji, people are accustomed to using these emojis instead of words to express some inexplicable emotions or moods.
However, the number of emojis is limited, people's emotions are unlimited, people will constantly need new expressions to express more diverse emotions, so every once in a while emoji needs to be updated, and the way to update is through the mobile phone system.
Contrary to people's stereotypes, Android's support for the new Emoji is actually no later than iOS, and may even be earlier than iOS.
Taking the latest update of Emoji 14.0 as an example, Google has been added to the Android 12L beta in October 2021, while Apple only joined the iOS 15.4 Beta in January 2022, and Android is nearly 3 months ahead.
Therefore, the real reason for the lag of the Android platform Emoji is not that Google reacts half a beat slower than Apple, but that Android's old problem is fragmentation of the system.
Because android manufacturers update the system at different paces and enthusiasm, the system difference between Android phones is a larger gap.
According to Statcounter's statistics, the number of devices in the current Android 12 version accounts for only 11.22% of the total, accounting for less than the 5-year release of Android 9.0.
Updating and maintaining the system has always been a difficult problem for the Android platform, and many manufacturers will give up maintenance support for the previous generation model after 2 years of release, which means that a large number of devices stuck in Android 9.0 or 10.0 are basically impossible to update the new version of the system.
Therefore, not only is there an Emoji barrier between Android and iOS, but there is also an Emoji obstacle between Android's new and old machines, flagships and entry, and behind the "tofu block", there is actually a system partition war.
▲ Emoji 14.0 changed the smiling eyes to expressionless, and only Apple kept up with the new design
Expensive mobile phones, new mobile phones can use new expressions at will, old mobile phones not only can not send new expressions, not even the opportunity to read, which is obviously unequal for Android users who lag behind in the system version.
In order to remove this communication barrier caused by system constraints, Google recently made an important decision to unbundle system updates from Emoji updates.
It sounds like Emoji 14.0 was being published quickly, but in fact work on Emoji 14.0 began two years ago.
In simple terms, Android users finally no longer have to wait for the manufacturer to update the Emoji emoji, as long as the app supports, they can automatically get and use the latest Emoji emoji.
▲ Left: Gmail Medium: Chrome Right: Edge (Emoji2 is not supported)
Google said that at present, including Gmail, Chrome, Chrome OS and other Google's own applications have used the new Emoji2 library, in the elimination of Emoji inequality, Android has taken an important step.
After testing, most Android apps do not yet support Emoji2, but the latest Emoji can already be displayed in the most commonly used WeChat chat, which is a good start to eliminate the Emoji communication barrier.
The birth of an Emoji
Now that the Emoji barrier is expected to be eliminated, can we speed up the update of Emoji and convert more emojis and items into Emoji?
It's a beautiful vision, but it's not so easy to actually make a new emoji, and to answer this question, we can first figure out how an emoji is made, published, and then used for us.
▲ Emoji 14.0 Most popular emoticons
The official name of the latest version of Emoji currently used in iOS 15.4 and Android 12L is actually called Emoji 14.0, which was approved and released by the Unicode (Unified Code) Alliance in September 2021, and then applied by Google and Apple in the system.
It sounds like Emoji 14.0 was being published quickly, but in fact work on Emoji 14.0 began two years ago.
The production process of Emoji is very interesting, and it is not the Unicode Alliance that is responsible for proposing and producing these new Emojis, but people from all over the world.
No matter where you're from, if you want to make a new emoji that's universally accepted, you can submit a creative idea to Unicode.
It's worth mentioning that Unicode recently opened the Emoji 16.0 version of the proposal application, once it is taken by Unicode, two years later the Emoji you designed can be found in every corner of the world.
Of course, as one of the most versatile memes in the world, Emoji's audit standards are also very high, and each new Emoji must consider multiple factors such as uniqueness, compatibility, and frequency of use.
The ability to combine with other emojis to produce new meanings is also a factor in Unicode auditing
If an emoji is only used to indicate a whim "stem" or a specific flower or animal, then it is most likely not approved by Unicode.
Unicode believes that Emoji should consider longer-term, more stable factors to meet people's demand for an "emoji language".
In addition, considering the user's memory burden, the volume of bytes of the meme, and the burden of the developer, the number of emojis must be controlled within a reasonable range.
So, while each version of Unicode receives a large number of proposals from enthusiastic designers around the world, Unicode only selects about 30 standard Emoji emojis to proceed to the next stage of design.
▲ Voted version of Emoji 14.0
After nearly two years of polishing, Unicode will pre-announce the new version of Emoji to the public before the release, let people vote for their favorite Emoji, and then make final adjustments based on the results of the vote, and finally be officially released.
It can be said that Emoji emoji is an emoji designed by users around the world to enable everyone in the world to overcome language and cultural barriers when communicating and communicating, and become the universal language of the digital age.
However, as a complex and powerful digital language, Emoji will continue to evolve, and although Unicode controls the quality of Emoji, it is not capable of solving the problem of slow and unequal popularity of new Emoji.
As Emoji continues to innovate, this language gap between old and new devices will become more and more obvious, and Emoji, which was originally designed to eliminate cultural barriers, will become another communication barrier.
Google this time will be the system update and Emoji symbol update separate, finally have the opportunity to let more people can fully read and use this digital language, I believe that through the efforts of more Android developers, the digital world of "tofu block" will eventually be eliminated piece by piece.
It has to be said that Google is once again ahead of Apple and Microsoft.