Personalized Emojis Made Easy: GenMoji on iOS Explained

In this episode, Thomas Domville demonstrates how to use GenMoji on iOS. GenMoji, introduced in iOS 18.2, is an AI-powered feature that allows users to create custom emojis simply by describing them in text. This innovative tool enables personalized and unique emojis, going beyond the standard set to enhance self-expression in messaging and other apps.

How to Create a GenMoji:

1. Update Your iPhone:

   • Make sure your device is running iOS 18.2.
   • Go to Settings > General > Software Update to check for updates.

2. Enable Apple Intelligence:

   • Open Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri, and turn on Apple Intelligence.

3. Access GenMoji:

   • Open the Messages app.
   • Start a new message or choose an existing conversation.
   • Double-tap the emoji icon on the keyboard.
   • Select "New GenMoji" in the top-right corner of the emoji keyboard.

4. Create Your GenMoji:

   • In the text field, type a description of your desired emoji (e.g., "a pink flamingo wearing tap-dancing shoes").
   • Double tap Submit.
   • Browse the generated options, then choose your favorite.
   • Double tap Add to include it in your message.

Device Compatibility: GenMoji is available on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and the iPhone 16 lineup and newer.

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by Aiko, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.

Hello and welcome.

My name is Thomas Domville, also known as AnonyMouse.

I'm going to be talking to you today about a feature called Gemmoji.

I know, I know.

There's so many different emoji, Memoji, Gemmoji.

Thanks to Apple.

I know.

I hear you.

But that's what I'm here for.

I'm going to explain what Gemmoji is and how that's different from other emojis that you find throughout your iOS.

Now this is a really kind of a nifty kind of feature that I'm starting to like quite a bit.

So all of you probably are familiar with emoji, right?

So emojis are little characters, little design, this little artwork is very small and that you can put into your messages and to your WhatsApp and all sorts of different variety of ways of communication.

So you can send a little picture of something.

So usually they're kind of basic stuff like cows and food things like tomatoes.

And you probably know more the popular ones like a smiley face emoji or something or heart eyes emoji and things like that, red heart.

Those are emojis and I know there's plenty of those emojis, right?

There's like a thousand of these things, right?

However, sometimes you're going to find that there isn't quite the emoji that you want.

Let's just say I want a mouse wearing sunglasses, giving a thumbs up.

You probably not going to find that emoji, but now we are able to design and customize your own emoji called Gemmoji.

That allows you to create any emojis that you want to your heart consent.

The sky is the limit and what you can create, but I'll show you some quirks and some setbacks that you're not going to be able to generate with a Gemmoji.

Now before we head on, Gemmoji is one of those things that you are going to be needing some new devices to make this work.

Oh, I hear a lot of ohs out there.

I get it.

I'm with you.

These devices, you must have a devices that will support Apple Intelligent.

So those are devices as some as like the iPhone 15 Pro and newer.

You will also have to have the iOS 18.2 and newer to be able to take advantage of this.

And not only do you need Apple Intelligence, Apple Intelligence may not be available in all countries.

So at this time of podcast, you may want to kind of consult and look up, see if your country is participating in the Apple Intelligence.

Plus, one more thing you have to have is access to the image playground.

No, this is not a recess area where you go and play in a playground.

Image playground is also a new feature.

That is what Gemmoji is going to be using.

So image playground allows you to create images based on prompts to create fascinating images.

That'll be for entirely a different podcast.

I'll be going over images playground app itself.

That is a standalone app.

So if you're new to the Apple Intelligent world and you do have those devices that supports Apple Intelligent, let me show you how to set this up.

So for those that I've already set this up, great.

So let's follow along for those that have not.

We are going to head over to your settings apps.

That's where we need to go first to enable Apple Intelligence because these are the one of the two things you'll have to have turned on before you can use Gemmoji.

Settings double tap to open.

Let's go ahead and do one finger double tap on that to open that up.

Settings And now what we are going to be looking for, we're looking for Apple Intelligent in Siri.

So you'll need to swipe to the right until you get to Apple Intelligent Siri button.

Apple Intelligence and Siri button.

Let's give that a whirl.

One finger double tap.

Open that item up.

Beta Now in my case, it says beta.

Now it is possible you are listening to your podcast a little bit later.

At this time, Apple Intelligent and Image Playground are still in beta.

Even though it's out in 18.2 and newer, it may still be in beta.

But if you don't hear the word beta, have no worry.

That probably means it's out of beta.

But anybody that has access to Apple Intelligent can play with Apple Intelligent even when it's in beta.

I'm going to go to the top half here with four fingers.

Settings back button.

What that does is focus the element at the top left where you have the back button.

Now we're going to swipe to the right through the various Apple Intelligence section until I get to the Apple Intelligent on or off to give you the option to turn that on or off.

Beta.

Apple Intelligence and Siri.

Heading.

A personal intelligence system integrated deeply into your iPhone.

Apps.

And Siri.

Learn more.

Link. Apple Intelligence.

Switch button.

On. Double tap to toggle setting.

There she is.

Now in my case, it's already turned on.

You'll have to do one finger double tap to turn that option on.

Now if it's for the first time and it's off, you'll have to double tap that.

And it probably will ask you to put be placed on a waiting list.

That is because they're trying to allow as many people that can at a time.

So it doesn't over in a day to the servers, but you should get granted access pretty quickly within a couple of days.

Once you have access to it, then this option will be turned on.

Now there's one more thing we need to set and get you set up before we can use a Jim Moji.

So I'm going to head out of here and go back to my home screen settings.

Double tap to open.

Now what we're looking for is the playground app.

Now I mentioned this before, the image playground.

It is a standalone app that you will find on your device.

I'm going to go to my playground here, playground, double tap to open, and we are going to open this up.

Now when you open up this for the very first time, you're going to get a screen that says what you'd like to be placed on a waiting list.

You'll have to do this one as well.

So there's two separate waiting lists.

Now this one takes a little bit longer to get in, but nonetheless, go ahead and put yourself on the waiting list.

Now typically it should give you a notification when you have been allowed, but go back every so often, maybe the end of the day, maybe tomorrow, the next day, whatever.

Just keep tapping on playground until you get the option to, that you can create images through the playground.

Playground, done, dimmed, button, describe an image or add a suggestion from the list.

When you hear those following items, that means you have access to the playground and voila, we are now done.

So now we have access to the Apple intelligence and now we have access to the playground.

Now I mentioned before, the Jim Moji is kind of tied in with the playground.

Now, as I mentioned before, this image playground, I'm going to be doing a separate podcast that will explain what this does.

And this is quite fascinating as well.

Now Jim Moji works in pretty much any text field.

So if you have any text field in those apps, whatever you might have interest in.

So in my case, I'm going to show you a demonstration of messages and we're going to send a message to Michael Hansen in this case.

But the point is, is that you, once you have the text field selected and you double tap on that text field, you have the keyboard that pops up and you probably are familiar with that.

So at the bottom left, you typically have numbers and symbols and an emoji.

That is where the Jim Moji lives.

So let's go back out of here and head over to messages.

Playground double tap to open messages.

Double tap to open.

I'm going to head over here, double tap that to open up messages, filters, back button.

I'm going to look for Michael Hansen, Michael Hansen, 1237 PM, swipe up or down to select a custom action, then double tap to activate.

So in your case, find a person that you want to send the Jim Moji.

And of course, as I mentioned, this works in mail, any text field, that could be WhatsApp and whatnot.

But in this example, I'm going to pick Michael Hansen here, messages, Michael Hansen, and I'm going to head over to the message field, message, iMessage, text field, double tap to edit, swipe up or down to select a custom action, then double tap to activate.

Use the rotor to access misspelled words, mentions, text effects.

Now I'm going to do one finger double tap to get into that text field, message, text field.

Now the keyboard should pop up and now if you're familiar with the keyboard, it shows up on the bottom one third of your screen.

So this is going to be in the same case for emoji and I'll explain why I bring this up.

But nonetheless, we got to get into the emoji section.

So at the bottom left hand of the keyboard layout, emoji, double tap and hold, then drag up to select another keyboard is the option to emoji.

Now for those that are familiar with this area, this is how you insert the variety of emojis.

One finger double tap, message, text field, is editing, iMessage, character mode.

Let's go back to the bottom left, emoji, English, US, double tap and hold, then drag up to select another keyboard.

So we are now in the emoji area.

If you're not familiar with it, this is where you can find all the various basic emojis that are available.

There's 1000 of them.

Now the thing is about this keyboard when it comes to emoji area, if you swipe left and right, you're going to see that you're going to be swiping for days.

I mean, there's so many swiping to do.

So unfortunately, we're going to have to do touch explorer.

So you're going to have to put your finger on the screen itself and kind of explore the area.

And then we're looking at the one third at the bottom half of your phone, as I mentioned before.

Now one of the easiest way to get to the search of the emojis is at the bottom left is that little keyboard layout that tells you that you're in the US.

If you tap on that and then just drag your finger up along the left side of the screen, you'll eventually get to the search area.

So I'll give you an example of that.

Emoji, English, US, bagel, genmigi, flamingo, genmigi, baguette, five, describe an emoji, text field, double tap to edit.

There's a text field where you can do a search for emojis.

What we want to go from here is to the right.

New genmigi, button, voila, there is the new jimoji.

Now is there another way to do that going from the left side?

Yeah, you can go to the bottom right and then go up to the right side and you'll eventually find the new jimoji button.

Let's go ahead and double tap that.

Emoji search hidden.

All right.

So now I am going to focus the top half of the screen here with four fingers.

Cancel button where we have the cancel button was at the top left hand corner.

Now as you swipe to the right, new genmigi beta heading.

Now once again, this is beta.

Now at some point later on, if you're hearing this podcast, you don't hear the word beta.

No worries.

It means it's falling out of beta, but I'd imagine it'll be in beta for some time.

Go to the right, add dimmed button.

We have the add button is dimmed out right now.

So that is how you're going to add the jimoji to the message or the text field that you have entered or that you want to place the jimoji in.

Now if you go to the right here, image pink and gray text against a white background, one a few words or street describes yo.

Essentially, this is an image placeholder.

So this is where your jimoji is going to be generated.

Now it's being generated all by AI and it's privately on your device.

That's the beautiful part about using Apple intelligence that everything you create and generate is on your device.

Only nobody gets that and it doesn't get uploaded to somewhere that we don't know and being collected, whatever not.

So to the right of that, text field is editing insertion point at start.

Use the rotor to access misspelled words is the text field.

That is your prompt box.

So I'm going to do one finger double tap on that.

Insertion point at end.

What do I mean by a prompt box?

Prompt is something that we use in AI.

Prompting means you are going to define exactly what you want and you got to be very specific how you want to say things.

So you got to make it very clear to it.

So the prompting is everything.

This is the most important thing here.

So as I mentioned before, I am going to create a jimoji of a mouse with sunglasses, giving a thumbs up.

So we're going to do just that.

So I'm going to use dictation here to initiate dictation, which is a two finger double tap or a magic tap to initiate dictation.

Or if you prefer to use your keyboard or the keyboard layout, well, it's there at the bottom one third of your screen.

Go ahead and type that in.

So let me go ahead and do this.

Mouse wearing sunglasses, giving a thumbs up.

Inserted mouse wearing sunglasses, given a thumbs up.

Excellent.

Now, a couple of things to notice here.

If you swipe to the right here, submit button, there is a submit button.

It's not required, but I liked it to just do the dictation.

And once I do the dictation, I go to the top.

So if you remember four fingers tapped towards top half of the screen, cancel button, where we had the cancel button.

Now swipe to the right, new jimoji beta heading, add button.

Now notice it says add button.

It's not dimmed anymore.

That's right.

Now, a couple of things after you do the dictation or the submit button.

It does take a few seconds to be able to generate the image or the jimoji that you have just created.

Now, typically the older the device, the slower it's going to be, not too horribly so.

And then newer devices, it can be quicker and instantaneous.

So it's really dependent on your device.

So be patient.

It typically takes about, oh, I don't know, three, five seconds, maybe at the max.

And then it comes up with options.

Yes, it gives you more than one option.

So let's go to the right here.

Image, an illustration of an animal wearing sunglasses.

Now here's the kicker.

It's one of those quirks.

Sometimes I know, right, it doesn't really say a mouse with sunglasses giving a thumbs up, right?

It just says an animal.

Well, I promise you that first image is what you want.

I've had done this several times and had somebody cited to take a look at this.

So at some point, I hope that Apple will give us a little better, clear information.

And some, it's like they need to use Apple intelligence to give us a little better description of that.

So that is the typical image when it tries to explain to you.

Now given that, there's a couple of things I do also want to note to give you a note to give you a heads up.

Not only does it create one image, but it also creates a number of images for you to look at and ponder which one you want.

Now obviously in my case, I'm completely blind.

I have no sight.

So these things aren't going to be that useful to me, but I do know the first one is always the right one.

So let's get an additional help.

I'm going to see if this works.

It's another feature that comes along, which is due for another podcast as well.

And that is having ChatGDP integrated with your Apple intelligence.

So that gets integrated into Siri.

One of the cool new features is able to look at your screen.

So I'm going to do just that.

It's on my screen.

Do you want me to send the screenshot to ChatGPT?

Yes, please.

Your screen shows a Gemma G creation interface where you're customizing icons.

You have an image of a mouse wearing sunglasses and giving a thumbs up gesture.

The text input section is suggesting phrases starting with E wearing sunglasses and giving a Thursday possibly related to creating or describing the Gemma G. That was from ChatGPT.

Check important info for mistakes.

So that just verifies that the image did see that particular image.

It is a mouse with sunglasses giving a thumbs up.

Now, given that there are other images that it tries to reproduce it now, typically once you get a little bit further, it does give you a little variation.

Sometimes, like in this example, you're going to see a totally goes way off whack image.

An illustration of a white cat wearing sunglasses.

Where did the cat comes in this picture, right?

What happened to the mouse?

Well, that's one of those things.

Now, if you did something like it with a cow, it might come up with a cow and might come with the next image of a cow with spots on it.

So it's kind of a hit and miss, but you can always depend on that handy-dandy first one.

Now, typically it will give you probably three or four results.

So you can keep swiping to the right to see the different images that it had provided to you.

Now, if none of this looks right and you still don't like it, you can go back down to that text field and prompt it something a little different.

So maybe you need just a little bit more of a description to get the exact picture you want.

Nonetheless, now there are two options to add this to the text field.

So in this case, it's message.

Remember, there's the add button at the top right, or I can just go back to the first image.

Image, an illustration of an animal wearing sunglasses.

You can do one finger double tap on that, image, emoji search, message, text field, is editing, a mouse wearing sunglasses and giving a thumbs up.

Okay.

So there she is.

She is now in the message itself.

You can add any text you want to it.

Oddly enough that I didn't realize that if you leave it at the standalone, it's a little bigger of an icon.

So the person that you send it to, if they have any vision, they'll see a little bit bigger of that jimoji.

However, if you start texting something and say, check out my new jimoji with it, it's going to make it a little bit smaller, but still recognizable.

And so that is the message.

And that is set in there.

Now the other course that you heard there is that it didn't tell me there's a jimoji.

Typically, if I say smiling eyes emoji, it'll say smiling eyes emoji, and it actually is emoji.

So you'd be able to tell that's an emoji.

However, maybe it's one of those things that'll be coming up and future updates that they'll ask, probably clarify that is a jimoji.

So it's not just a word just spelled out there.

And now I'm ready to send that off.

And then Michael will see this jimoji, he'll probably be scratching his head, a mouse wearing sunglasses with a thumbs up.

Interesting, Tom.

Well, nonetheless, you get the idea of how that works.

Now what are some of the limitations?

Some of the limitations you need to know about any copyrighted things, objects or anything like that.

So if I had a cow wearing a Mickey Mouse ears, well, unfortunately, Mickey Mouse ears is copyrighted.

So anything that's copyrighted, you're not going to be able to use it.

It just won't generate.

It'll just come up with an error or a message that lets you know that you need to do a new prompt.

That's the same for any characters.

So if you know any cartoon characters like Snoopy or Mickey Mouse, those won't work either.

A couple of other things I found that it does not like creating images of people.

So I'll just say a man wearing mouse ears or a man giving a thumbs up.

It might give you a little bit of a problem with that too.

So it's very specific.

Another thing I found out, anything that's mythical like dragons, for some reason it just creates something, but it's not really a dragon.

I know it's strange.

So there are some caveats and some drawbacks in being able to use the Jimoji.

Now obviously this is new and it just came on.

So this is a new feature.

I imagine this is going to get better over time, but nonetheless, I'm having a ball with this.

Now there's one more thing I do want to point out to you.

What happened to the Jimoji?

Can I use that again?

Yes, you can.

So let me show you where you are able to find that.

A mouse wearing sunglasses.

When you're back into that text field at any time, any place, remember the emoji button at the bottom left when the keyboard pops up?

Go back into that.

Emoji, double tap and hold, then drag up to select another keyboard.

One finger double tap that.

Message, text field.

Now go back to the bottom left.

Emoji, English, US, double tap and hold, then drag up to select another keyboard.

Remember you find that keyboard now, from here go left.

Flags.

These are the emoji categories and one we're looking for is called stickers.

It's very far left.

Symbols, objects, travel and play activity, food and drink, animals, and smileys and peep, recents.

Selected.

Stickers.

Once you find the stickers, double tap that to make sure it's selected.

Now I might guess it's already selected.

Now we're going to go to the bottom left again.

Emoji, English, US.

Double tap and hold.

And then do the touch explore along the left side until you find the search area.

Emoji, English, describe an emoji, text field, double tap to edit.

Now go right of here.

New genmaji, button.

And to the right.

New sticker, button.

Voila, now we're here in the new stickers area.

Go to the right.

Genmaji, a cow wearing sunglasses, wearing roller skates on, three.

Now that's something I've done before, there's a cow with sunglasses, but he's wearing roller skates.

Genmaji, a pink flamingo with tap shoes, four.

Yep, I've done that, pink flamingo with tap shoes.

Genmaji, a mouse wearing sunglasses and giving a thumbs up, one.

There she is.

Do one finger, double tap that and that will insert that genmoji onto your text field.

Are you getting pretty excited about this genmoji?

I'll be honest with you, I didn't think I would use this all month that much.

I didn't use emoji all that much, but now that I can create my genmoji, I can be very specific and customize it perfectly what I want to express.

And it has opened up my eyes to a whole new realm of creativity.

It's exciting time.

I love the genmoji and I hope that this podcast help you to understand what genmoji is, how to access it and how to create your own genmoji.

Now I'll be really curious if you guys would come to AppleVis, come to this particular podcast and leave comment of all the things you created with genmoji.

I am very curious what kind of creative minds we have out there and what kind of cute and funny things you come up with so that I can steal your idea.

Anyway, that is how to use genmoji.

My name is Thomas Domville, also known as AnonyMouse.

Until next time, bye-bye.

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