As Android users eagerly await the Android 4.4 KitKat update on their devices, many will be pleased to know that the newly implemented Android emojis are at least somewhat compatible with handsets running other operating systems.
Google introduced a full emoji keyboard onto its recently released Android 4.4, which is currently exclusive to the Nexus 5 smartphone; however, we have discovered that Nexus 5 handsets are able to send emojis to devices running older Android operating systems and they, for the most part, are supported.
Using a brand new Nexus 5 handset and a few-months-old Samsung Galaxy S4 handset, we sent a series of emojis from one device to the other, and the emojis from the Nexus 5 mostly show up on the Galaxy S4. The biggest difference is that the Nexus 5 emojis, coming from a native emoji keyboard, are in color, while the emojis on the Galaxy S4 are all in black. Some of the emojis are not supported and either do not show up at all, or present with question mark emojis. In the first series of emojis sent, the baby bottle shown on the Nexus 5 screen is missing, while the smiley face next to the snowman in the second series of emoji is missing. In addition, the bathtub and water drop emojis in the second series show up as question marks.
These emojis can be replicated only by copying and pasting the emojis sent from the Nexus 5, as the Galaxy S4 does not have a native emoji keyboard of its own, nor does it implement any third-party keyboards or dictionaries. This particular Galaxy S4 runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, which was released in late 2012. While it is one of the most recent Android versions, it is quickly becoming outdated with two new versions having released since its time. Some models of the Galaxy S4 have since updated to Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, but we are unsure whether that version has even more emoji support.
Next, we tested the compatibility between the Nexus 5 and an Apple device. Apple devices have long had full emoji keyboards running natively on their operating systems, with little compatibility to Android systems.
Android users have had the ability to get emojis through third-party keyboards, but when texting an emoji from an iPhone to an Android phone, emojis would largely not show up on Android’s non-compatible messenger. Depending on the Android version, unsupported emojis would either not show up at all or show up as question marks or blocks, as was previously shown. Until the release of Android 4.4 KitKat, the only way to successfully have full emoji support across platforms was through third-party apps like Google Hangouts. With the release of Android 4.4, Google has also combined its text messenger with Google Hangouts, ensuring Android users have emoji support regardless of what messaging platform they use.
Source : IBTimes
