For any of those who are interested I thought I would write up what I have discovered about the emoji. I would be interested in what your experience is, if you have tried it.

• You have to activate it via the keyboard option under the japanese keyboards.
• For me it has only worked when I am sending email via my japanese carrier (ie Softbank). If I try to use emoji from gmail or mobileme the emoji keyboard is not an option.
• sending emoji laden emails to anything but a japanese mobile does not work (ie if I send you an email, even to your iPhone, the emoji will not be rendered.

so in short.. emoji is just for softbank phones sending email to other japanese mobile phones.

leaving that alone.. the emoji is really sweet... nice definition... well drawn characters.

I have Japanese keyboard on, but can't find emoji option.

EDIT: Ah, got it (わかった). We who have no Softbank, have no emoji option. Oh well.

That sucks

poo

The implementation of of the emoji can not be seen as a full success....

It does not work with the other 2 carriers...so it is really just for softbank users... harking back to the day 7 years ago... when carriers emoji was incompatible with others.

For those who are interested, emoji can be activated on any iPhone with 2.2. You will probably have to be jailbroken or have access to an iTunes backup editor of some sort.

MacThemes Forum / 2.2 : Enable Emoji Everywhere

hmm as I posted over there (thanks for the link)

Cool implementation of the emoji. Wish that it would work against other carriers as well. I've modified my fonts based on info found online so I can send emoji and receive them from Docomo & AU people, and now use the iPhone emoji for Softbank people.

Are they just little pictures you can put in emails?

Emoji - to paraphrase Mr S Jobs - is a bag of hurt.

The three carriers (docomo, AU and Softbank) have their own standards all using different pictures.. so one smiley face on one carrier looks different to the other 2.

For many years the system were completely incompatible with other carriers. ie If I sent an emoji from docomo to AU the picture would not be rendered. Similarly if I sent an emoji to a desktop computer it would not be rendered (without downloading the appropriate plugins - which to my knowledge are windows only).

Around 2003-4 the carriers all go together and agreed to keep their systems.. but to translate and render with the appropriate version on the receiving phone - ie docomo sender sends docomo smile to his AU and Softbank buddy they would see and respectfully.

So inter carrier compatibility was somewhat established. There are still several emoji on all carriers which wont translate across.

gmail has recently enabled it and so using gmail (via the web) you can send gmail versions and receive the original carrier version as sent from the phone.

hope that helps a bit.

Thanks so much!

looks cool! I'm jealous!

Every time I see this thread I think of those shitty Danoz Direct Emjoi Gently infomercials from years ago.