Those precious Emoji icons that have been used to express more than words could ever say are being pulled down by Apple from the US iTunes App Store according to a late night email we received from Gary Fung, creator of Typing Genius. The news has come as a devastating shock to many iPhone users who've become accustomed to letting emoji do the talking in their daily communications.
Gary Fung said this about Apple's notice:
- All new apps related to emoji will be rejected in the review process.
- Existing apps that do not provide additional functionality will be pulled from the App Store.
- Existing Typing Genius users who have already unlocked emoji will not be affected when Apple remove apps from the App Store.
Though Apple offered developers no specific reason for the action, it's possible that one reason could be that a strange symbol takes the place of the emoji icon when sent in an email or text message being read outside of the iPhone or iPod touch. Essentially making the icons useless to unsuspecting recipients.
A few weeks back we tipped readers off to the free Spell Number app which unleashes Emoji icons from within the application using a number sequence. Gary Fung suggests getting in now before the Emoji go the way of the dinosaur. Emotifun, iEmoji have already been yanked from the App Store. I would also avoid any updates to emoji enabled apps until we know more.
This still works I downloaded the app its still in the store. I wonder if its really going away or just a way to get everyone to buy the app...
Posted by: Dennis | March 04, 2009 at 02:32 PM