RazorianFly

It seems the luxury of enabling Japanese Emoji on your iPhone or iPod touch over the past few weeks was just that, a luxury. Apple are saying no to Emoji. Today. So, get it while you still can! …

[Update 27.02.09 @ 12.01pm GMT] – Twitter user @petermwah has opened a thread over at Mac Rumors based on this article. You can find that here.

Original Post:

A few weeks back we broke that Emoji had arrived on the App Store in the form of a disguised RSS reader, developed by Frosty Place (video). Today we’re saying, if you don’t already have emoji enabled on your device, you’ll be wanting to enable it .. and fast.

What is Emoji

“Emoji (絵文字, Emoji?) is the Japanese name for the picture characters or emoticons used in Japanese wireless messages and web pages. Originally meaning pictograph, the word literally means e “picture” + moji “letter”. The characters are used much like emoticons elsewhere, but a wider range is provided, and the icons are standardized and built into the handsets.”

Emoji. It’s the one thing which has made the iPhone seem a little bit more interesting outside of Japan. But in a few days that could all be about to change. This morning I received a tip-off from Typing Genius [App Store] developer Gary Fung saying that Apple is preparing to completely remove all Emoji support from it’s App Store.

Considered as an exclusive feature on Japanese iPhone’s, Apple says we’re simply not meant to have Emoji outside of Japan, and as of today they’re going to force developers of these applications to remove it, entirely.

So what does this mean for everyone? Well firstly, no more Emoji, at least not unless you already have it enabled. Apple are adopting system-wide hate on Emoji from today, and because of this here are some of the App Store changes you will now see come into effect:

New App Store Policy:

1. All new apps related to emoji will be rejected in the review process.

2. Existing apps that do not provide additional functionality will be pulled from the App Store (e.g. Emotifun, iEmoji pulled already).

3. Existing apps that DO provide additional functionality (e.g. Typing Genius) will be required to provide an update to Apple immediately.

” I would like to inform your readers that existing Typing Genius users who have already unlocked emoji on their devices will not be affected when Apple remove apps from the App Store. Also, the emoji unlock will remain intact for users who upgrade to a newer version of Typing Genius (without the unlock) later on.”
- Gary Fung

Affected Applications (there may be more):

- Typing Genius (App Store)
- Spell Number (App Store)
- Touch Dial Emoji (App Store)
- FrostyPlace (App Store)

“I do not know how long Apple will take to accept our update, but unfortunately emojis will be inaccessible in the very near future. Emoji fans should hurry before it’s too late!”
- Gary Fung

So, there you have it. Apple is removing Emoji support from the App Store, and you have literally just days to enable it. Not enabled Japanese Emoji yet? You’ll have to be quick!