Apple Color Emoji

Apple Color Emoji is Apple's color emoji font built into its platforms, shipped with iOS, macOS, watchOS, and others. As early as 2008, iPhone OS 2.2 provided an emoji keyboard for Japanese users; in 2011, Apple officially introduced emoji globally with iOS 5 and OS X Lion, making it one of the most recognizable elements in the Apple ecosystem.

Visually, early versions of Apple Color Emoji used a glossy, skeuomorphic design. Starting with iOS 10 in 2016, it shifted to a flat, rounded style with vibrant colors and meticulous detail, widely considered one of the highest-quality emoji designs in the industry.

Technically, Apple Color Emoji uses Apple's proprietary sbix bitmap format and evolves with system updates; it is not available for separate download. Thanks to Apple's massive device install base, Apple Color Emoji has played a major role in popularizing emoji worldwide, and its release is regarded as a milestone in the history of emoji.