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Platforms and fonts
The same emoji looks different on an iPhone, a Pixel and a Samsung, and no amount of downloading will change that. Here is what is actually happening, and what to do when yours are out of date.
U+1F525 · six different pictures
Quick answer
No, and there is nothing to download. An emoji is a character, like a letter. What you see is a font drawing that character, and the font comes with your operating system. Apps promising emoji downloads are selling stickers, which are images, or keyboards that insert exactly the characters your phone already has.
The only way to get newer emoji is to update the system that draws them. On an iPhone that means an iOS update. On Android it is usually a system update too, though since Android 12 the emoji font can be replaced on its own, and Google delivers newer designs to individual apps through Play Services.
Getting the newest ones
Settings, General, Software Update. Apple adds each year’s new emoji in a point release rather than the big autumn one, so they often arrive several months after Unicode publishes them. There is no way to update the emoji font on its own.
Settings, System, System update. Android 12 introduced updateable system fonts, so the emoji font can change without a full upgrade, and apps built on Google’s libraries can show newer emoji through Play Services before the system catches up.
Both ship emoji with the operating system, in Segoe UI Emoji and Apple Color Emoji respectively. Windows Update and macOS updates are the only routes, and Windows tends to lag the furthest behind of any major platform.
A website usually shows your system emoji, so it follows whatever your device has. Sites that look consistent for everyone are loading their own set, most often the open source Twemoji, as images or a web font.
Who draws what
Unicode fixes the character and says nothing about the picture, so each of these maintains its own artwork for every emoji in the set.
| Platform | Font or set | What makes it different |
|---|---|---|
| Apple | Apple Color Emoji | Ships with iOS and macOS and cannot be replaced without jailbreaking. The most detailed of the major sets, and the one most people picture when they think of an emoji. |
| Noto Color Emoji | The Android default. Flatter and more geometric than Apple's, and completely redrawn in 2021 when Google revised nearly a thousand designs. | |
| Samsung | One UI emoji | Samsung ships its own set rather than Google's, so two Android phones can render the same message differently. |
| Microsoft | Segoe UI Emoji | The Windows set, drawn in a flat outline style that stands apart from every other vendor. Distinctive enough that a screenshot is usually identifiable. |
| Its own set | Draws emoji itself instead of using the system font, so a message can look different in WhatsApp than in the same phone's Messages app. | |
| X (Twitter) | Twemoji | Open source under a Creative Commons licence, which is why it turns up on websites, in Discord and across half the internet. |
When the picture changes
Because the artwork is not standardised, a vendor can redraw an emoji and change what it communicates without anything happening in Unicode. The clearest case is U+1F52B. It was encoded as a pistol and every platform drew a firearm, until Apple replaced theirs with a bright green water pistol in 2016. By April 2018 Twitter, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Samsung and WhatsApp had all followed, and today the character shows a toy everywhere.
Nothing in the standard changed. One code point went from weapon to toy entirely through design decisions made by half a dozen companies. It is the sharpest illustration of what Unicode does and does not control, and worth remembering whenever an emoji seems to land differently than you intended.
Questions
No, and you do not need to. Emoji are characters built into iOS, drawn by a font called Apple Color Emoji that ships with the operating system. Apps in the App Store advertising emoji downloads are selling stickers, which are images, or keyboards that insert the same characters your phone already has. The only way to get new emoji on an iPhone is an iOS update.
Update the operating system. Apple adds new emoji in iOS point releases, usually some months after Unicode publishes them. On Android 12 and later the emoji font can be updated without a full system update, and Google also delivers newer emoji to apps through Play Services, so many apps show them before the system does.
Unicode standardises the character, not the picture. 🔥 is U+1F525 on every device, and each platform draws its own artwork for it. Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, WhatsApp and X all maintain separate designs, so the same message can look noticeably different depending on who opens it.
The character arrived but your device has no font covering it, so it falls back to an empty rectangle. This usually means the emoji is newer than your operating system. Updating fixes it. A box with a cross or a question mark inside means the same thing.
Not properly. Apple Color Emoji is licensed for Apple devices, and replacing the system emoji font on Android needs root access on most phones. Some keyboards and messaging apps let you send Apple-style images, but those are pictures rather than characters, so they will not be searchable or copyable as text.
They see the same character, drawn by their own device. If you send 🔥 from an iPhone to an Android phone, the character is identical and the artwork is not. This is why an emoji that seems clear to you can occasionally land differently, and why anything important should be in words as well.
Keep exploring
📟💬😂
How the character set came to be standardised at all, and why the usual dates are wrong.
Read the history🔥 ✨ 💯
Each entry lists the code point and the Unicode version it was first defined in.
Browse emoji( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Faces built from ordinary characters, which look identical on every platform because no font draws them specially.
Compare them