iOS 18.2’s Genmoji is Apple Intelligence’s secret best feature

Earlier today, Apple unleashed the next stage of its AI-driven vision for the iPhone. Powered by Apple Intelligence, iOS 18.2 comes with a number of exciting features, including Image Playground, Image Wand, Visual Intelligence, and advanced ChatGPT integration.

Among these changes is a quirky and fascinating tool which Apple calls Genmoji. Essentially, the feature allows you to write out a prompt, after which the system will generate custom emoji designs for you. This generative technology happens entirely offline, which means that it functions even without an active internet connection.

How to build your own custom emoji design in iOS 18.2

Genmoji is powered by Apple Intelligence

To start crafting your own custom Genmoji designs, follow these steps:

1. Ensure that your iPhone is a model that supports Apple Intelligence, and confirm that you’ve toggled the feature set on within your Settings app.
2. Launch the Messages app on your iPhone.
3. Tap on the text field at the bottom of your screen.
4. Tap on the emoji section of the keyboard.
5. Tap on the colorful Genmoji button, located on the right-hand side of the Emoji search panel.
6. Describe the Genmoji design you’d like to create, and then select from the generated results that appear on-screen.

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Is Genmoji the next big thing in text-based communication?

This is Apple’s second attempt at reinventing the humble emoji we all know and love

Apple

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Apple experimenting with the little smiley emoticons and symbols known as emoji — the company introduced Memoji alongside the iPhone X in 2017, serving as a tech showcase for the then-new Face ID biometric system.

Memoji remains an excellent display of just how accurate and performant the Face ID tracking system is. In practice, however, the feature’s appeal remains rather niche. Considering the popularity of stickers across various messaging services, as well as Unicode‘s never-ending supply of fresh designs, I can see Genmoji becoming a major hit.

Google, for its part, seems to agree. Built within its popular GBoard virtual keypad app for Android, the search giant has introduced its own emoji-making experience called Emoji Kitchen. Similar to Genmoji, Google’s implementation allows you to mash up various emojis into new and unique designs. What makes Apple’s version stand apart — for the time being at least — is its generative AI capabilities for added flexibility.

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