Samsung gives their awful emoji a complete redesign in Android 8.0 Oreo

It's official, folks. After months/years of complaining, someone at Samsung finally got the memo and they're finally re-designing their god-awful emoji in an incoming software update. The new and improved emoji are coming as part of Samsung Experience 9.0 — the manufacturer's custom Android skin — and it's quite frankly a day we weren't sure would ever come.

We've certainly complained about it enough times. Samsung's emoji are some of the worst representations of the glyphs we've ever seen, often times conveying completely different emotions or things than what you'll find elsewhere.

The most blatant was the cookie, which on Samsung devices was represented by a cracker. A freaking cracker. There were plenty of other offenders as well, something that made communicating with friends or family on other devices (even on the same platform) an arduous affair.

Samsung seems to be targeting Apple emoji with their revisions, something that's clear with the revolver (gun) being replaced by a green squirt gun. Ironically, Samsung devices not receiving the Samsung Experience 9.0 update — which will arrive with Android 8.0 Oreo — will now have trouble with emoji miscommunication when messaging newer Samsung devices. If only there was a way to update emoji independently on devices running older software versions without requiring a firmware update, but I digress.

The Android 8.0 Oreo update is currently rolling out to the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus, making them the first Sammy devices to enjoy the newly revised emoji.

via Emojipedia