Why are they no smileys on the iPhone?

[Nitsson]

Something that I've been thinking about for a while now is why there are no smileys on the iPhone. I use them sparsely, but I do think they enhance the conversation at times and I just can't understand Apple's reasoning for not including this feature. As we all know it's been something that mobiles have had for years and years, hell, even Blackberry has support now.

So, any ideas as to why? I'm just curious, and get my smiley sorted via the excellent iRealSMS.

[skiptowncat]

search emoji in the AppStore

[Poseidon79]

I've has smileys and animotions for a long time... it's freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

[Nitsson]

search emoji in the AppStore

Switching input language to insert a smiley that is often not compatible with other phone brands, not to mention vanilla iPhone's which do not have native support for any smileys, is not a solution in my book. In addition you've not answering the question.

[dotFIVE]

Well even if smileys were installed by default on the iPhone, because not all phones have the same smiley images, a on your phone would still translate to a boring :-) text smiley. Why cause more clutter on the keyboard for a smiley input function (which really only satisfies the sender of the text because they alone see the image) when you can just go to symbols and insert a : and a ) and you get the same result?

[seann33uk]

"vanilla" phones have the emoji icons "pre-installed" so sending them from 1 to another they will be seen.
as for other phones... well emoji is a Japanese thing so im guessing its mainly Japanese phones that will do it.

other then that things like :] :[ :/ tend to give a basic expression just not all happy and colourful.

[Nitsson]

Well even if smileys were installed by default on the iPhone, because not all phones have the same smiley images, a on your phone would still translate to a boring :-) text smiley. Why cause more clutter on the keyboard for a smiley input function (which really only satisfies the sender of the text because they alone see the image) when you can just go to symbols and insert a : and a ) and you get the same result?

Perhaps it's a matter of location. In Europe I've yet to come across a phone (I've used Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and the recent Blackberry models) that do not support the classic ": )", "; )" and ": D" which is really all I use. As for clutter, well iRealSMS managed without any clutter at all. I'm just used to smileys growing up with them and all.

"vanilla" phones have the emoji icons "pre-installed" so sending them from 1 to another they will be seen.
as for other phones... well emoji is a Japanese thing so im guessing its mainly Japanese phones that will do it.

other then that things like :] :[ :/ tend to give a basic expression just not all happy and colourful.

No they do not. When I get a message with a smiley without iRealSMS (or the equivalent) installed I see the ASCII text only. True I can install emoji, but I find it inconvenient to have yet another input language to toggle with (I already write in four languages). This is why I find the iRealSMS solution much more elegant.

Not to get into a lengthy discussion on this though, I was just curious.

[Tazz229]

They already installed on the phone just enable the Japanese keyboard.