Your mother in emoji? Only with Apple Intelligence

But how does Genmoji, the emoji generator made in Apple, work? The Apple company presented its emoji generatorby artificial intelligence, but did you know that an emoji has absolutely nothing to do with an image?

Emojis are not images!

And yes! Many people don't know it, but emojis are actually not images. Have you ever tried saving an emoji like you would a picture? We'll let you test it, and you'll see that it's not possible, unless you take a screenshot.

In reality,emojis are pictograms coded using the Unicode standard,and published by the consortium of the same name. The latter is a non-profit organization that oversees the development of the Unicode standard. It is made up of employees from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta, etc. Each member can propose new emojis, which will then be reviewed by the Consortium and then published, or not.

How Genmoji works

Apple designed an API calledNSAdaptiveImageGlyphwhich is used to manage images such as Genmoji, stickers and Memoji. It allows this type of image format tobehave like classic emojis, even though Genmoji are not Unicode charactersstandard. They are generated using a square format, which supports multiple resolutions and includes metadata for better integration with the text. As a reminder, the square image format allows you to optimize images in different contexts, including text.

Genmoji can be copied, pasted, and sent as stickers. Additionally, they align with the text in messages, respecting line height and formatting. This makes them compatible with any environment that supports rich text.

This new type of emoji initiated by Apple, however, has some disadvantages compared to the originals. Since they are not based on Unicode, they are not suitable for representing sensitive information like identifiers or phone numbers. They also won't enjoy the same wide compatibility as Unicode emojis.

To finish,on older versionsof iOS, iPadOS, macOS, or in applications that do not support rich text,Genmoji will appear as a text description.Apple also presented its image generator alongside Genmoji:learn more here.