It is a sad, sad day for Android users.
Because Google is getting rid of their iconic (no pun intended) blob emojis, and are replacing
them with what you can only describe as ABOMINATIONS.
The update comes in the new Android O developer preview.
They haven't been made official, but will once this new version is released to the public.
And maybe not everyone thinks this is a big deal, but you know what, this just ain't right.
Now obviously I need to show you what I'm talking about for you to understand.
We can start off with an example of what I think is one of the WORST changes in the entire
new catalogue.
The turtle.
This little guy is what we have now.
Just look at him.
Look how happy he is.
Why would anyone want to hurt him?
But no, Google decided they don't want a cute little smiling turtle, so they're killing
him.
And turning him into THIS.
WHAT.
IS THAT.
You go from a happy smiling goofy turtle, to this ugly, arrogant, half asleep, double
chinned, grotesque shelled, discolored faced, big toe headed, atrocity!
Now we haven't even gotten to the smiley emojis yet, but just looking at the rest of the animals
they've changed, a lot of them are just as bad.
It's like they wanted them to look more realistic for some reason.
I mean look at the tiger, went from being an actually expressive emoji to just some
dead faced animal that doesn't even look like a tiger anyway.
Next thing you know, they'll be changing all emojis to photographs of the subject in question,
it only makes sense right?
They clearly want to fit as much detail into a tiny 48x48 pixel square for some reason,
so why not just take picture and be done with it?
Oh wait, it's because maybe you want an emoji to actually be something you can use as an
expression in a text message and not in a university taxonomy course.
Of course we have to talk about the faces.
Oh don't worry they're just as bad.
Here's what we have now.
The cute little blobs.
Maybe they're strangeley shaped, but they're simple, not overdone, and easy to understand.
Like I said before, I think when it comes to emojis, simpler is better, because they're
going to be shown so small.
So before we show you the new junk, for comparison, here's a blast from the past.
These are some emojis from the ancient MSN messenger, circa 2005.
Remember when we had these ugly things?
... But actually wait, because I lied these aren't emojis from 2005.
These are in fact, the NEW Android emojis.
Yes.
I wonder how many of you could tell.
I mean really, what ARE these?
They look like those pop up ads from 15 years ago with the "thousands of free emoticons"!
What's up with the thick border and weird gradient on all of them?
It makes all the faces look like they have 5 o'clock shadow.
And why is this one blue now?
It doesn't even make sense it makes it look sick.
It's like whoever designed these had no idea what they were doing, looked up some 15 year
old design tutorial on YouTube, and then made all these using the exact same steps for each
one without learning any new techniques.
I mean gradients?
REALLY?
Now let be clear for a minute.
I know why they wanted to redesign the emojis in general.
It's not like this is the first time they've changed them, and it won't be the last.
The main reason was to create consistency of the Android emojis among the rest of the
other platforms.
And OK, fair enough.
There WERE some android emojis that looked different than say IOS.
But there weren't that many.
For example here's this old grimacing smiley face on Android, and here it is... on iOS.
Wait a minute, that looks the same.
Then what does the new one look like?
Uhhh...
I thought they were going for consistency here.
Ok let's try another one.
Ah!
Here, look, this is the old Android Dizzy face emoji.
As you can see, it's totally different from Apple's, which has X eyes.
But now they've fixed it, because here's the new... one...
Umm...
I'm kinda getting mixed messages here.
And you might be saying, well you're just cherry picking.
There are plenty of emojis that didn't look like iOS!
Well sure, that was definitely the case a few years ago.
I mean look at this angry face from Android which totally didn't match up with the iOS
version, but that was way back in Android 4, since then it's the same.
Then there was the surprise face which for some reason Android had as a mouth zipped
shut.
But again, that was only with Android 4.
Really the only example I've found that fixes a reasonably major difference is the scared
face, where on Apple it looked like some sort of ghost with no eyes or something, and on
Android it actually looked like a person.
They did change that to more closely resemble the iOS version.
But you know what, in this case, I think the iOS version looks stupid, it doesn't even
look like a face.
At least the Android version had some personality.
So I'm not buying this whole, "we did it for consistency" excuse, because it's obvious
they didn't need to change as much as they did.
If they wanted to get rid of the blob shape, just change them to a circle, keeping the
rest, problem solved.
In fact in a couple that's exactly what they did, like the kissing face.
For the hideous gradient and outlines, their explanation is that they wanted the emojis
to be more easily visible.
In a blog post describing the design process, they argue that the outline and gradients
make the emojis more legible across all backgrounds.
But I mean come on, did anyone really have any issue with legibility before?
Or is this a solution looking for a problem?
The only way the old ones would be tough to see is if you had them on a pure yellow backgroundu
or something.
And even stil, you'd still be able to see the emoji's faces.
And, can you recall even a SINGLE time you've used an app that uses a pure yellow background
when typing in text?
...Didn't think so.
For the 1 in a billion times it helps, they just look stupid the rest of the time.
At this point you might be wondering jeez, these emojis do look like crap.
Hopefully they didn't spend too much time on these, and they'll be willing to change
them.
Well, it turns out they spent a full YEAR AND A HALF working on these horrendous things.
So I think with this much time invested, I mean wasted on this, they wouldn't change
their mind even if Steve Jobs himself came back and told them he liked the old versions
so much that Apple would start using them exclusively.
But it makes you wonder, how the hell could they have possibly spent that much time on
these and ended up with such an ugly result?
Do they not do focus groups or opinion testing?
Or perhaps it's a case of these people needing to justify their jobs in order to keep getting
paid.
Maybe they thought, "well if all we do is change the background shape from a gumdrop
to a circle, the bosses are going to question why they're paying is 6 figures a year."
Wouldn't surprise me either.
If you look at the blog post aboutu the new emojis, they have all sorts of fancy diagrams
with grids showing how circular the circles are, and Wow look at this plane that we've
carefully placed at exactly a 45 degree angle, that one was tricky.
And just look at this interesting image showing the different colors they used in these various
emojis.
Isn't it cool that with the dolphin we used three whole colors, Blue, slightly darker
blue, and even darker blue?
I hope the boss doesn't find out I just randomy clicked around the color palette until it
looked good.
And don't forget about those tonal strokes guys, they're not outlines, they're TONAL
STROKES, get it right would ya?
Look Google, I know you're proud of your work, but I think you're taking these emojis a bit
too seriously.
There is literally no reason to add this much detail to a tiny drawing of a rabbit.
In fact the new one doesn't even look like a rabbit, more like an albino chipmunk.
Why are the ears so short?
And need I remind you of this poor little fella again?
I think the funniest thing about the blog post is the last section, where they talk
about how they're introducing 69 new emojis!
Really?
THAT's the number you're going to go with.
69 that's not a joke?
You spent a year and a half on all these and you couldn't make ONE MORE?
Couldn't make it to 70?
Ok you know what, I'll help them out, I'll make my very own emoji using their own components,
and they can use it.
Let's do one that represents my reaction to these new emojis.
Yep, that seems about right, took a whole minute to make that one.
Oh wait, I forgot, that's not enough anymore, needs more gradient and tonal stroke.
Ahh there we go, that was definitely necessary.
Well that didn't take long, but I mean we're paid by the hour so I may as well spruce it
up a bit right?
Ha now THAT's more like it.
Perfect.
So yea I think by now I've made it pretty clear why I think all these new emojis just
look stupid.
The current versions look totally fine, and their simplicity is a good thing.
They don't need to be exactly the same as the other platforms as long as the fundamental
facial expression is the same.
Sure there were a couple that could be tweaked, but that doesn't justify a completely new
redesign, especially one that looks like it belongs in an AOL instant messanger emoticon
pack.
And as we saw, there were some that probably needed to be changed and they didn't anyway!
Of course when it comes to Google, they are obviously not going to change their mind because
they never listen to customers anyway.
For me, I don't even use emojis very often at all except as a joke, and even I can tell
how dumb these are.
At least with some text messaging apps they do let you pick what emoji set to use.
And that is all I have to say, but I want to know what you guys think about all this.
Let me know in the comments whether you agree with me, or think I'm completely wrong.
And be sure to check out everyone elses comments too and find out if you're in the minority
opinion or not, we'll see.
Anyway, if you want to keep watching, I'll put some other videos right here, you can
just click on those.
And if you want to subscribe, I make new videos every tuesday thursday saturday.
Again I'm looking forward to hearing from you, so thanks for watching, I'll see you
next time, have a good one.