Developer’s Manual to Android Emoji: Samsung Galaxy 🌌
Emoji in Mobile Apps
In our debut game, Emoji Riddles™, relies on a number of different aspects of emoji to make each riddle decipherable. The illustration of the emoji matters for brainstorming the underlying words in each riddle. If the emoji illustrations are not consistent from player to player, some players could suffer a poor experience and have lower overall engagement. This post seeks to help developers understand key differences when relying on the system default emoji for use in a mobile application.
Samsung
Samsung devices use their own emoji designs which are different to those used on other Android devices. These glossy emojis appear on devices such as the Samsung Galaxy and Galaxy Note series and are updated as part of the Samsung One UI interface layer (previously Samsung Experience, before that Samsung TouchWiz) which runs on top of Android. - Emojipedia
Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Device Vendor Market Share
Samsung TouchWiz (Discontinued)
| Version | Release Date | Samsung Device(s) | Android API Level | Emoji Changes | # Emoji |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TouchWiz 5 | 2015-03-01 | Galaxy S6, S6 Edge | 21 | N/A | 1060 |
| TouchWiz 5.1 | 2016-08-21 | Galaxy Note 5, S6 Edge+ | 22 | Added 🙂 and 📸 | 1064 |
| TouchWiz 6 | 2016-03-11 | Galaxy S7, S7 Edge, S7 Active, A9 Pro | 23 | Supports Unicode 7.0 and Unicode 8.0 | 1224 |
| TouchWiz Grace UX 7.0 | 2016-08-19 | Galaxy Note 7 | 23 | Added emoji flags | 1473 |
| TouchWiz Grace UX 7.1 | 2016-09-22 | Galaxy Note 7 | 23 | Support for skin tone modifiers and Unicode 9.0 | 2006 |
TouchWiz was replaced by Samsung Experience in 2017 with the release of Android Nougat 7.1.1 (API Level 25).
Samsung Experience (Discontinued)
| Version | Release Date | Samsung Device(s) | Android API Level | Emoji Changes | # Emoji |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Experience 8.0 | 2017-01-19 | Galaxy S7, S7 Edge | 24 | Supports Emoji 4.0 | 2652 |
| Experience 8.1 | 2017-04-21 | Galaxy S8 | 24 | Updated 🤞 | 2652 |
| Experience 8.5 | 2017-09-15 | Galaxy Note 8 | 25 | Added 🗾, 💹, and 🎌 | 2655 |
| Experience 9.0 | 2018-02-08 | Galaxy S9 | 26 | Support for Emoji 5.0. Yellow as the default skin color for emoji. Significant design convergence to align with other vendors. | 2893 |
| Experience 9.5 | 2018-08-09 | Galaxy Note 9 | 27 | Support for Emoji 11.0 | 3052 |
| Experience 10.0 | 2018-11-01 | Galaxy S10 series | 28 | Beta of One UI 1.0/1.1 | 3087 |
Samsung Experience was replaced by Samsung One UI in 2019 with the release of Android Nougat 9.0 (API Level 28).
Samsung One UI (Current)
| Emoji Riddles™ Compatible | Version | Release Date | Samsung Device(s) | Android API Level | Emoji Changes | # Emoji |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ❌ | One UI 1.0 | 2019-02-20 | Galaxy S10 series | 28 | Realistic animal designs, ©️, and ®️. 📅 now displays the date as July 17, the date of World Emoji Day. | 3087 |
| ❌ | One UI 1.5 | 2019-08-23 | Galaxy Note 10 | 28 | Supports Emoji 12.0 | 3302 |
| ✔ | One UI 2.0 | 2020-01-31 | Galaxy S10 Lite, Note 10 Lite | 29 | Corrected regional symbols 🇺 and 🇻. | 3302 |
| ✔ | One UI 2.1 | 2020-02-14 | Galaxy S20, Z Flip | 29 | Supports gender-neutral person ZWJ sequences available in Emoji 12.1 | 3440 |
| ✔ | One UI 2.5 | 2020-08-21 | Galaxy Note 20 | 29 | Support for Emoji 13.0 | 3556 |
Key Takeaways
- Samsung has their own user interface software which runs on top of Android that includes custom designs for emoji.
- Since Samsung relies on Android, their support for newer Emoji specifications typically lags by a few months the Google interface version of Android.
- Emojipedia does an excellent job tracking everything going on in the world of emoji. We suggest following their updates on Samsung.
Download Emoji Riddles™ on your favorite Samsung Android device today!
