Memoji: what you need to know about Apple's new animated emojis

It’s a big week for emojis. The new ginger emojis have been unveiled and Apple has announced its new animated characters, named Memoji.

An updated version of the Animoji characters which were released last year, the new Apple Memoji allow you to create a custom emoji that looks just like you.

Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, announced the new features at WWDC yesterday.

“We wanted to take Animoji even further. You can now create your very own, personalised Animoji.”

Here’s how it all works.

Before you get too excited about your own Memoji, the feature is only available for iPhone X owners.

This is because the TrueDepth camera on the iPhone X uses facial recognition to analyse your expressions. It then uses this to create the Memoji.

For iPhone X owners then, the process is similar to creating an Animoji.

1. First up, open the Messages app and start writing a new message.

2. Where you would normally select Animoji, instead you can now swipe right and click on the add button to start creating the custom Memoji.

3. You can now start building the virtual version of yourself. Select things like eyewear, facial hair, accessories to make your new animated emoji look just like you.

4. Then send off the custom made Memoji, download it as a sticker, or use it in FaceTime chats.

The thing with the Memoji is that though it’s interesting and another way to get people used to AR, Apple is really just playing catch up to other players.

It was a big deal last year when Animojis came onto the scene because this was a new form of expression for smartphone owners.

Yet, the Animojis were fairly basic. There were only a few characters you could use, such as the Monkey and the Poop emoji.

Also, earlier this year Samsung topped the Animojis with its own AR Emoji on the Samsung Galaxy S9 – a customisable 3D emoji that used facial recognition to create the character.

And really, these attempts are all just building on Snapchat’s own Bitmoji, which allows you to create your own avatar and try out pre-ordained AR scenes. Bitmoji has been going since 2014, and Snapchat bought the start-up for around $64 million in 2016.

If you are excited about Memoji, you might want to contain that excitement for a while.

You won’t be able to use the new features until Apple’s new operating system, iOS 12, is rolled out which won’t be until September this year.

However, iOS 12 will make apps launch up to 40 per cent faster which is something worth looking forward to.