Apple lets you create your own personalized Animoji
This is huge news, people.
Animoji were a surprisingly fun part of the iPhone X experience, and Apple just stepped things up significantly with the announcement of Memoji. As you might expect, this lets users create their own Animoji characters based on your own look. It's a pretty huge addition that users will likely have a blast with.
Additionally, Apple is adding "tongue detection" -- as you might expect, this means that certain Animoji can stick out their tongues just as you do. (It looked particularly great and hilarious with the T-Rex Animoji). Creating your own Memoji is pretty simple and offers granular adjustments to things like hair length; you can of course add accessories like sunglasses, earrings and so forth. If you've ever made a Mii character on various Nintendo platforms over the years, you'll be right at home here.
As for the preset Animoji, Apple is adding a handful of new ones: ghost, koala, tiger and the aforementioned T-Rex.
Apple is adding a number of additional features to messaging that feel a lot like they were inspired by Snapchat. Chief among those is adding filters and stickers to the messages app camera. there are filters like "comic book" that make you look like a drawing, you can add stickers, and you can even add your Memoji creations to these photos or videos.
Finally, Apple is also adding FaceTime right into the messages interface -- you'll be able to jump into group FaceTime conversations straight from group messages.
Sadly, it seems that these Animoji and Memoji will be restricted to the iPhone X, at least until Apple introduces new phones this fall. That's not surprising, as the in-depth camera and sensor array that powers Animoji is exclusive to that device. But it wouldn't surprise us if the ability to make Memoji is a big driver in new iPhone sales soon.
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