Apple has gotten into what society is calling "Artificial Intelligence", or "AI", except they have put their own spin on the term. One of Apple’s core tenets is protecting user privacy, and they attempt to do so whenever possible. In order to accomplish this, Apple attempts to protect user privacy through a combination of performing as many requests on the device as possible. However, for advanced requests that may not always be possible. For those requests there is a feature called Private Cloud Compute. Private Cloud Compute is a set of servers run by Apple that are capable of handling your request, providing the result, and then the server is completely erased. If you need more details, be sure to check out the post that is the Introduction to Apple Intelligence.

Apple is releasing the Apple Intelligence features in batches. The first set of features released were done so in iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. This set included "Typing with Siri", "Summarization and Mail", and "Writing Tools". The second set of Apple Intelligence features are being released with iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2. There are four new features for this batch. This article will cover “Genmoji”.

Everyone has a different set of talents. Some people can sing, others can entertain through comedy, yet others can write, and some can even draw. There are many who wish they could create works of art, and yet they cannot.

When Apple introduced Apple Intelligence, one of the features promoted was the ability to generate images. The way that this would be done is through a dedicated application called Image Playground. Sometimes you have an idea of the type of image that you want, but you have no idea how to get started. Image Playgrounds can help.

Image Playground is designed to allow you to generate an image based upon prompts that you give it. For example, you could describe something like “Show an Alien farming with a sci-fi theme”, or you could say “Corgi and a goat, kayak on a lake”, or even “Cow wearing a blue party hat”, or just about anything else you can think of, and it will be generated.

Communications

There are a variety of ways to communicate. This could be images, video, and even text. When you are communicating with someone via text, it can be difficult to accurately depict what you are trying to say, particularly if you have a limited number of characters. In those situations, you may want to communicate something in a succinct manner.

For text, it can be useful to add a bit of flair or even clarification with something called emoji. Emoji is a standard managed by the Unicode Consortium. As of this writing, there are 3,790 defined emoji characters. This does not include variations, like skin tones for people. Some of these emojis are things you might expect, like a heart, smiley faces, pizza, burger, book, and a giraffe, just to name a few. There are also some rather obscure ones, like Passport Control, Coral, Non-Potable water, and even a Pager.

While it is likely that you will find something that will work in your own situation, you may not be able to find just the right emoji. This is where Custom Emoji can be helpful. Apple calls this Genmoji.

Much like other Emoji-related items, like Memoji, Genmoji are generated emojis.

Generating Emoji

If you are not able to find just the right emoji that you need, you can now create one with Genmoji. To create an emoji, you can use the following steps:

1. Open the Emoji keyboard.
2. Start typing the emoji that you are looking for.
3. When the emoji is not found, tap on “Create new Emoji”. A popup will appear.

The generated Emoji will show a screen similar to that of Image Playground, where four possible versions will be generated. You can swipe between the variations and see which one is the one that you want to use. If you do not like the ones that have been generated, you can swipe to the right and additional versions will be created.

Once you have found one that works for what you want, you can then use it in the app of your choosing. In fact, the custom Emoji will be saved as a sticker that you can use throughout iOS, iPadOS, and macOS Sequoia, but they can only be created on iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2. When a custom emoji is saved, it will be created as a sticker and it is automatically synchronized across your devices.

Genmoji Details

Let us say that you have generated a custom emoji and have used it for a while, you may want to create something similar but may not remember the description that you used. You are in luck, you can actually view the details of the emoji by using the following steps:

1. Locate the custom emoji that you want to get details about.
2. Tap and hold, or right-mouse click, on the emoji. A menu will appear.
3. Tap on the “Details” menu item.

Once you tap on the “Details”, a popup will appear and it will provide you with the data used to create the emoji. The information is only the prompt used, but this may be enough for you to re-create, or create another version, of the custom emoji.

Custom Emoji Examples

Here are a few custom emojis that I have generated, including the text used to generate them.

Sparkle Face

Rainbow Colored Computer

Turquoise Computer

Closing Thoughts

Even though there are nearly 3,800 standard emojis, there are still a plethora of other emojis that one might want to use that are not available. This is where Genmoji can be useful. You can generate any number of new emojis that you want. Much like the Image Playground, you can describe the emoji that you are looking for, and one can be generated.

When you do generate an emoji, it will be saved and automatically synchronized across your devices running iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2. This means that you can use all of your emojis within many apps within the operating systems.

Be sure to check out all of the other articles in the Apple Intelligence series.