{"id":758,"date":"2015-09-13T08:20:24","date_gmt":"2015-09-13T07:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/exponentialdecay.co.uk\/blog\/?p=758"},"modified":"2023-07-10T18:30:11","modified_gmt":"2023-07-10T17:30:11","slug":"how-exactly-does-the-iphone-transmit-diverse-emoji-characters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exponentialdecay.co.uk\/blog\/how-exactly-does-the-iphone-transmit-diverse-emoji-characters\/","title":{"rendered":"How Exactly Does the iPhone Transmit Diverse Emoji Characters?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It started a short time ago when Cooper Hewitt<\/a> released their Unicode tools for Python: https:\/\/github.com\/cooperhewitt\/py-cooperhewitt-unicode<\/a> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Also available in Golang here: https:\/\/github.com\/cooperhewitt\/go-ucd<\/a> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I had an immediate need to use this tool in translating out of bounds, non-ASCII characters for archivists when analysing digital collections.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

How do you describe the character 0xC481 to users in a more user friendly way? – How do you highlight that the character with a macron in the word M\u0101ori <\/span>may hide <\/span>the<\/span> slight<\/span>est<\/span> digital preservation risk in our not-very-Unicode-ready world right now? <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

You don’t, you analyse it, <\/span>you respect it, <\/span>note it outside of ASCII bounds and then ascribe to it <\/span>the<\/span> plain-English name to it: <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

‘\u0101 LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH MACRON ‘<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This is what the Unicode Consortium calls it, that is what we should be calling it. Aware that we need to preserve this information, and then move on. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The result of my work to incorporate Cooper Hewitt’s tool into my own is part of the DROID CSV Analysis Engine: http:\/\/openpreservation.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/03\/analysis-engine-droid-csv-export\/<\/a> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

On the way to the combining of those tools, and with the help of the Golang version of the tool, I took a little detour documenting the Latin names for each of the Emoji found in <\/span>the iPhone’s<\/span> IOS8 at the time: <\/span>https:\/\/gist.github.com\/ross-spencer\/b59856dbcaa4621654f1<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The combination of the glyph alongside its <\/span><\/span>L<\/span><\/span>atin <\/span><\/span>descriptive<\/span><\/span> counterpart; <\/span><\/span>a<\/span><\/span> curious list! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The benefit of the <\/span><\/span>G<\/span><\/span>ist above is <\/span><\/span>that <\/span><\/span>you can look at it on any browser on any platform and see how your own operating system displays the data it is asked to display. I had hoped to blog about the differences <\/span><\/span>cross-platform (Android’s <\/span><\/span>literal<\/span><\/span> display of <\/span><\/span>\u2764 <\/span><\/span>HEAVY BLACK HEART<\/span><\/span>)<\/span><\/span> but as most reverse engineering stories go, I found my way to the source <\/span><\/span>proper<\/span><\/span>, Unicode.org, alre<\/span><\/span>a<\/span><\/span>dy documenting Emoji and differences wonderfully, and this information can be found here: http:\/\/unicode.org\/emoji\/charts\/full-emoji-list.html<\/a> <\/span><\/span>and <\/span><\/span>here:<\/span><\/span> http:\/\/unicode.org\/emoji\/charts\/index.html<\/a>. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The remainder of this blog is therefore about adding a little extra technical information to the new diversity updates we saw in the draft to Unicode 8.0, and now ratified standard, and added in Apple’s IOS 8.3<\/a>. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Described by Mashable<\/a>, equally wonderfully as how Unicode documents its own work; on 9 April of this year (2015), Apple released IOS 8.3 jumping on a yet to be finalized draft by the Unicode Consortium to add different skin tones to appropriate glyphs. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

They point to a technical report by Unicode.org on diversity: http:\/\/www.unicode.org\/reports\/tr51\/tr51-2.html#Diversity<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The question I had when I started investigating this was, with the new additions to IOS did we now have (x)*5 \u2013 hundreds! Of new Unicode characters for representing Emoji with different skin tones. My research showed me the following pattern when run through the Cooper Hewitt Unicode tools: <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

? OLDER WOMAN <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

? OLDER WOMAN <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

?<\/p>\n

? OLDER WOMAN <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

?<\/p>\n

? OLDER WOMAN <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

?<\/p>\n

? OLDER WOMAN <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

?<\/p>\n

? OLDER WOMAN <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

?<\/p>\n

In hex:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Older<\/a><\/p>\n

First, we note all the primary Emoji names are the same, that is, they all use the same character, in this case:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

0xF09F91B5, o<\/span><\/span>r: http:\/\/www.fileformat.info\/info\/unicode\/char\/1f475\/index.htm<\/a> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Second, after the first two references we see an additional character, and then again a different new character after each other ‘Older Woman’ character, the complete set is:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

0xF09F8FBB , 0xF09F8FBC , 0xF09F8FBD , 0xF09F8FBE , 0xF09F8FBF<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If we look up the character numbers on FileFormat.info<\/a> we find, for example, <\/span><\/span>that <\/span><\/span>the first <\/span><\/span>different new <\/span><\/span>character refers to: <\/span><\/span>EMOJI MODIFIER FITZPATRICK TYPE-1-2<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

An odd name! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Though, if we look at the Unicode.org technical report again, describing additions to the standard, we see:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFive symbol modifier characters that provide for a range of skin tones for human emoji are planned for Unicode Version 8.0 (scheduled for mid-2015). These characters are based on the six tones of the Fitzpatrick scale, a recognized standard for dermatology (there are many examples of this scale online, such as\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/span>FitzpatrickSkinType.pdf<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/a>). The exact shades may vary between implementations.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese characters have been designed so that even where diverse color images for human emoji are not available, readers can see what the intended meaning was.<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The default representation of these modifier characters when used alone is as a color swatch. Whenever one of these characters\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/span>immediately<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/em>\u00a0follows certain characters (such as WOMAN), then a font should show the sequence as a single glyph corresponding to the image for the person(s) or body part with the specified skin tone, such as the following…<\/i><\/span><\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So the answer to my question is that we don’t have hundreds of new Emoji characters, we have five<\/strong><\/em> modifier characters; those modifiers change the colour tone of the characters that they are transmitted with. These modifier characters are: <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n