Apple Just Killed the Emoji and It's a Stroke of Genius

Let's talk about Genmoji. Despite what is kind of a weird name (presumably, it's meant to combine "generative" with "emoji"), it's a pretty cool idea. It's also sure to be a highlight feature from Apple's WWDC this week. After all, people really like emoji. Like, they really like emoji. More than 92 percent of people say they use emoji on a daily basis. According to Emojipedia, more than five billion emojis are sent every day on Facebook Messenger alone. Still, emoji are part of the Unicode standard, and there are only 3,782 as of version 15.1. For years, a consortium--of which Apple is a member--decided which new emoji should be included, and that's that. The rest of us just get to choose from their list. That means that while there is almost always an emoji for every text or tweet, sometimes it's hard to find the perfect way to express whatever it is you're trying to say. Now, Apple will let you conjure up pretty much whatever emoji you want. The group of people who get to decide which new emoji should be created literally just got a lot larger. To be clear, Genmoji aren't actually emoji, which are technically text that an app renders as a smiley face or taco or whatever. Instead, they are sent as tiny images. You can use them in the body of a text message, or as a tapback--the feature that lets you add emphasis or a reaction to a message. Previously, there were only six tapback options. Genmoji was one of the things that had been rumored ahead of WWDC, and--to be honest--I was skeptical. The idea that Apple was going to let you create your own custom emoji on the fly seemed like a gimmick. It seemed as though Apple must be desperate to find ways to sprinkle generative AI into its upcoming releases and, if this was the best they could come up with, things must be pretty bad in Cupertino. Obviously, Genmoji wasn't the only thing Apple came up with, but it might be one of the most popular. After all, there are a lot of people who upgrade their iPhone to the latest version of iOS just to make sure they have whatever new emojis have been added. Sometimes people like gimmicks. Most people don't care about things like the ability to transcribe notes in the Notes app, as helpful as it might be to someone like me who is going to use it all the time. They care about things like customizing their home screen and having more fun and expressive ways to communicate. Emojis have always been a big part of that. But now, Apple has pretty much put an end to emoji as a standard. Maybe not technically--the consortium isn't going anywhere--but practically speaking, it's not going to matter what new emojis are added, at least not if you have an iPhone. There's no more waiting for a far-off body to approve a set of updates; you can just do it on the fly. To be clear, there's no indication Apple is no longer going to support the emoji standard, but rather, it's going to give its users the freedom to go beyond the basics. Not only that, but it's another feature that you can get on an iPhone but not on other devices. If you're a parent looking to buy a phone for your teenager, you can be sure they're going to ask you for an iPhone capable of doing this. Then, there's the fact that Genmoji are a part of Apple Intelligence, which is available only on the iPhone 15 Pro series, and will presumably be available on all new iPhones. That alone is a reason a lot of people are going to want to upgrade, even if they would have typically waited longer. And that might be the biggest reason this move is a stroke of genius. EXPERT OPINION BY JASON ATEN, TECH COLUMNIST @JASONATEN