Samsung Experience 9.5 Emoji Changelog

Keith Broni

• 5 min read
Samsung Experience 9.5 Emoji Changelog

Samsung has today released its latest flagship device: the Galaxy Note 9, which is the first release from Samsung to include support for Emoji 11.0. New emojis shipping on this device include a cold face, hot face, and pleading face.

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Above: Samsung’s designs for the six new smiley emojis from Emoji 11.0: 🥰 Smiling Face With 3 Hearts[1], 🥴 Woozy Face, 🥵 Hot Face, 🥶 Cold Face, 🥺 Pleading Face and 🥳 Partying Face.

This is the third update Samsung has made to their emoji font this year, following updates to Samsung Experience 9.0 in February[2] and Samsung Experience 9.1 in April.

This is noteworthy in and of itself, as prior to 2018 Samsung were noteably slower than other vendors in delivering emoji updates.

What doesn't change with these releases is that despite the prompt addition of new emoji support for new devices, many older Samsung phones are provided with these software updates slowly, or not at all.

New

Samsung Experience 9.5 features all 157[3] new emojis featured within Emoji 11.0. These new emojis include hair styles[4], superhumans, animals and foodstuffs.

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Above: The four new hair style emojis: red hair, curly hair, grey hair and bald.[4:1]

🦸 Superhero and 🦹 Supervillain are new in this update, and in a first for this emoji compared to other platforms: each have a gender-inclusive design that is neither strongly masculine or feminine.

As per the spec, separate sequences exist for the versions of these emojis for women and men.

Emojipedia-Samsung-Experience-9.5-Emoji-11.0-Super-Heroes-and-Super-Villains-Emojis
Above: New Superhero and Supervillain emojis on Samsung Experience 9.5.

Ten new animal emojis in Emoji 11.0 are included in this release. 🦡 Badger and 🦛 Hippopotamus display the animals full bodies, akin to Twemoji 11.0 but unlike Android 9.0.

Emojipedia-Samsung-Experience-9.5-Emoji-11.0-Animals-Emojis
Above: New animal emojis in Samsung Experience 9.5.

In the food and drink category, six new emojis have been added, including 🥮 Moon Cake and 🥯 Bagel.*

Emojipedia-Samsung-Experience-9.5-Emoji-11.0-Foodstuff-Emojis
Above: New entries in the food and drink category on the Galaxy Note 9.

Emoji 11.0 also features multiple new objects relating to science, sports and domestic living. All new emojis featured in Samsung Experience 9.5 can be viewed here.

Changed

The majority of emojis look the same in this release as all previous releases. Only one emoji has noticably changed appearance which is the ♾️ Infinity emoji which changed its color from gray to blue.[3:1]

Emojipedia-Samsung-Experience-9.5-Infinity-Emoji

Additionally, 👁️‍🗨️ Eye in Speech Bubble emoji does not appear to be supported in Samsung Experience 9.5.

It is presently unclear if its removal was intentional or not, but the disappearance of certain emoji designs is not unknown to Samsung users. It's possible this is a bug, and we could see it returned in a future update.

Unchanged

Samsung has historically featured some interesting deviations from emoji design norms. This update features no changes to outstanding deviations, such as the various initials features across 📔 Notebook With Decorative Cover, 📕 Closed Book, 💾 Floppy Disk, 💳 Credit Card, 📦 Package and 🚅 Bullet Train.[5]

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🇺 Regional Indicator Symbol Letter U also still oddly displays as a "V" instead of a "U", though regional indicator letters are not intended be displayed in isolation - they are intended solely for the creation of flag emojis.

Release

Samsung Experience 9.5 is available from today, coming included by default on the newly-released Samsung Galaxy Note 9.

Wider rollout of this update to other Samsung devices is expected over the coming weeks and months, though its availability with vary by location, device and mobile phone carrier.

Samsung has confirmed this update will be made available to devices which get the Android 8.1 Oreo updates, which at the time of writing means only devices released in 2018. The Galaxy S8 released in 2017 is not currently receiving these updates, and its unclear if or when this may change.

Users are advised to get in touch with Samsung or their carrier to see if or when they plan to support this update on their own device.

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Above: A selection of new emojis available on new Samsung devices. Image: Samsung / Emojipedia Composite.

  1. While the Unicode name for this emoji's code point specifies three hearts, Samsung has opted to show four heats. This echoes Emojipedia's original sample image for this character, designed by Joshua Jones. In practice, the concept conveyed is the same, regardless of the number of hearts. ↩︎

  2. The Samsung Experience 9.0 update was quite extensive, bringing a large number of Samsung's previously divergent designs more closely in line with those of most other major vendors. ↩︎

  3. The ♾️ Infinity has had an emoji design option on Samsung devices since 2013, based on the Unicode “Permanent Paper Sign” character introduced to devices in 2005. However, this emoji was not recommended for general interchange (RGI) until the release of Emoji 11.0 earlier this year. ↩︎ ↩︎

  4. These hair styles are created by combining 👨 Man and 👩 Woman with one of four new emoji components: 🦰 Emoji Component Red Hair, 🦱 Emoji Component Curly Hair, 🦲 Emoji Component Bald and 🦳 Emoji Component White Hair. These emoji components are given graphical representation within Samsung Experience 9.5. ↩︎ ↩︎

  5. Initials began to be introduced to certain Samsung emoji designs in 2016, though several of them were removed in Samsung Experience 9.0. ↩︎