Samsung One UI 4.0 Emoji Changelog

Samsung One UI 4.0 Emoji Changelog

Today Samsung has begun rolling out the latest version of its Android software layer, One UI 4.0. This update includes popular emoji recommendations from late 2020, such as the Heart on Fire and Face with Spiral Eyes.

Samsung-One-UI-4_0-All-New-Emojis

Above: all the new emojis within Samsung One UI 4.0. Image: Samsung / Emojipedia composite.[1]

Over 200 new emojis have been introduced to Samsung devices in One UI 4.0, all of which are from September 2020's Emoji 13.1 recommendations.

One UI 4.0 does not include the brand new emoji recommendations recently made via Emoji 14.0[2], such as Melting Face, Saluting Face, and Heart Hands.

While Samsung's July 2021 update, One UI 3.1.1, modified a handful of emojis' designs including, today's One UI 4.0 does not revise any existing emojis.

This means that both ๐Ÿง” Person: Beard and the ๐Ÿ’‰ Syringe have continued with their previous designs.

The lack of an update to the ๐Ÿ’‰ Syringe contracts with most major vendor updates throughout 2021, where the syringe's barrel has had its blood-like contents and droplets removed.

Emojipedia-Samsung-Emoji-Vendor-Design-Comparison-Syringe

Above: Samsung's unchanged ๐Ÿ’‰ Syringe design alongside other vendors' current designs for this emoji.

The ๐Ÿง” Person: Beard's lack of change appears to be due to an odd implementation choice for the new ๐Ÿง”โ€โ™‚๏ธ Man: Beard emoji sequence, which is discussed below.

๐Ÿ†• New

There are three new smiley emojis in One UI 4.0.

Samsung-One-UI-4_0-Smiley-Emojis-1

Two new hearts have also debuted on eligible Samsung devices: โค๏ธโ€๐Ÿ”ฅ Heart on Fire and โค๏ธโ€๐Ÿฉน Mending Heart.

Samsung-One-UI-4_0-Heart-Emojis

This update also introduces new gender-specifying variants of ๐Ÿง” Person: Beard: ๐Ÿง”โ€โ™€๏ธ Woman: Beard and ๐Ÿง”โ€โ™‚๏ธ Man: Beard. Both of these new emojis support skin tone modifiers.

Emojipedia-Samsing-One-UI-4-New-Woman-With-Beard-Emojis

Above: ๐Ÿง”โ€โ™€๏ธ Woman: Beard as it now appears on Samsung devices.

Samsung have, however, appear to have made a mistake in their implementation of the new ๐Ÿง”โ€โ™‚๏ธ Man: Beard emoji.

In providing support to Emoji 13.1, other emoji vendors have opted to migrate their existing ๐Ÿง” Person: Beard design to the new ๐Ÿง”โ€โ™‚๏ธ Man: Beard emoji. While doing so, they also provided a completely new gender neutral design to the ๐Ÿง” Person: Beard.

Emojipedia-Samsing-One-UI-4-New-Man-With-Beard-Emojis

Above: the new ๐Ÿง”โ€โ™‚๏ธ Man: Beard emoji as it appears in One UI 4.0, with a more gender neutral design than the ๐Ÿง” Person: Beard emoji.

However, instead of emulating other vendors, Samsung have instead provided the new ๐Ÿง”โ€โ™‚๏ธ Man: Beard emoji with a completely new gender neutral appearance and kept the ๐Ÿง” Person: Beard's original design.[3]

Emojipedia-Samsing-One-UI-4-Person-With-Beard-Emojis

Above: the design of the ๐Ÿง” Person: Beard emoji remains unchanged in One UI 4.0.

It is possible that the ๐Ÿง” Person: Beard and ๐Ÿง”โ€โ™‚๏ธ Man: Beard emojis will swap designs in a future update.

The remaining new emojis in One UI 4.0 are different skin tone combinations of both ๐Ÿ’‘ Couple with Heart and ๐Ÿ’ Kiss emojis.

Emojipedia-Samsung-One-UI-4_0-4x4-Couples-575px

Above: ๐Ÿ’‘ Couple with Heart and its variants now comes with a choice of skin tones for either person.

Emojipedia-Samsung-One-UI-4_0-4x4-Kiss-575px

Above: ๐Ÿ’ Kiss and its variants now come with a choice of skin tones for either person.

๐Ÿ” Samsung's Android Emojis

Despite manufacturing Android-based devices, Samsung ships phones using its own custom emoji font that differs from the emoji set provided by Google.

It was the sole Android manufacturer to do so between 2016 and early 2021, after HTC and LG retired their custom emoji sets in favor of Google's designs.

LG did recently revive their own custom emoji set for their LG Velvet devices. This update is expected to be the vendor's last, however, as earlier this year LG official withdrew from the mobile device manufacturing market.

Emojipedia-LG-Velvet-Brand-New-Emoji-Selection

Above: a selection of emojis from LG's custom emoji set.

In 2021, the rule is that phones running Android will display Google's emoji set unless the phone is a Samsung device or an LG Velvet.

There is a caveat, however. Many apps on Android also use their own custom emoji designs, regardless of whether run on Samsung or not. These include Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp.

This is in contrast to iOS, where the native Apple emoji set is used across all major apps.

Additionally, many popular applications on Android devices are likely to be running Google's EmojiCompat library via their use of the latest version of AppCompat.

This means that Samsung devices will see Google's emoji designs for Emoji 14.0 emojis if they appear within apps such as Snapchat.

๐Ÿ“ถ Release

The rollout of Samsung's One UI 4.0 update has begun today for the Galaxy S21 series of devices in select regions.

The rollout of One UI 4.0 is expected to continue over the next number of weeks and months, with rollout varying by device and region across late 2021 and early 2022.

๐Ÿ“– Read More


  1. The design for ๐Ÿง‘๐Ÿฝโ€โค๏ธโ€๐Ÿง‘๐Ÿผ Couple with Heart: Person, Person, Medium Skin Tone, Medium-Light Skin Tone does not appear to be correctly rendered in the initial release of One UI 4.0, but we have included a correct composite design in this image in the expectation that this design rendering error will be resolved in a future Samsung update. โ†ฉ๏ธŽ

  2. Certain apps will, however, support Emoji 14.0 in Google's emoji designs when run on Samsung devices in the near future thanks to Google's EmojiCompat and AppCompat libraries. โ†ฉ๏ธŽ

  3. This is not the first time a Samsung design has had an oddly swapped implementation. Between 2016 and 2020, the designs for Samsung's ๐Ÿ‡บ Regional Indicator Symbol Letter U and ๐Ÿ‡ป Regional Indicator Symbol Letter V designs were swapped. You can read more about this here. โ†ฉ๏ธŽ