How do you get smilies /emojis to show in sms?

Hey iOS experts,

My wife had an iPhone 4 running iOS 6. When ever I send her a SMS message with common simple emojis like :) ;) that is colon close parentheses or semicolon parentheses. She'd get just the raw text, it wouldn't translate to a smiley, etc.

NOW, I bought her a big fancy new iPhone 6 running 8.1 I believe and it still doesn't show up? What gives? What setting do I need to change? Everything that comes up when I search for the answer to this just shows me how to enable the emoji keyboard, but that's not the problem.

Posted via the iMore App for Android

Originally Posted by captainbdsc

Hey iOS experts,

My wife had an iPhone 4 running iOS 6. When ever I send her a SMS message with common simple emojis like :) ;) that is colon close parentheses or semicolon parentheses. She'd get just the raw text, it wouldn't translate to a smiley, etc.

NOW, I bought her a big fancy new iPhone 6 running 8.1 I believe and it still doesn't show up? What gives? What setting do I need to change? Everything that comes up when I search for the answer to this just shows me how to enable the emoji keyboard, but that's not the problem.

Posted via the iMore App for Android

Here's what I experience when texting: Smileys typed out on texts as you described will come through as raw text (emoticons) on iPhones. Sometimes if I am in a rush when texting to other iPhone users, I will type out a smiley emoticon instead of using the emoji keyboard and they come through as the raw text emoticon.

Also, as far as I know, iPhone emojis won't translate to other phone platforms in texts. So if your wife texts you an emoji to your Android phone, it probably won't display. (Please correct me if I am mistaken.) I am not familiar with Android phones so maybe the smileys typed out in texts (emoticons) to other Android phones will turn into an actual smiley like they do on forums?

I remember sending an "iPhone emoji" in a text to someone with another type of smartphone and they said they just got a plain square. So now I don't use the iPhone emojis in texts unless I know the recipient has an iPhone.

Thank you for the explanation. That makes sense now. I am currently using a BlackBerry Z10. Emoticon's translate to graphics when I receive them and when I view the messages I have sent in a conversation. I have several friends who have Android devices that can share emojies, but I am not sure what kind of special keyboards if any they have installed. I will have to see if my emoticons show up on their devices as text or images, out of curiosity.

Thanks again!

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You're very welcome. :)