Hack iPhone 2.2 to Enable Emoji (Japanese Emoticons)
/* Posted December 1st, 2008 at 12:12am *//* Filed under Apple, How-To, Mods, iPhone */
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As an undocumented feature of the latest iPhone 2.2 firmware, Japanese SoftBank network iPhone users were given access to use a plethora of cool emoticons known as "emoji" icons. But you too can join in the fun with a jailbroken iPhone running 2.2 firmware. The hack is a straightforward modification on a certain plist file in the Apple iPhone’s file system, and the emoji icons can be enjoyed in a wide variety of use cases like the Notes program as seen in the screenshot above. Note that while you can add the SoftBank emoticons to your emails and text messages, your recipient must be running on 2.2 firmware to see them. Below, we outline the steps to hack your iPhone to enable the Emoji.
- Download DiskAid which will help you navigate your iPhone’s file system easily. Another alternative to getting access is through OpenSSH and FTP.
- When DiskAid pops up, it shows you the media view of your iPhone. The first thing to do is get to the root view of your iPhone by selecting it on the drop down on the lower left hand corner.
- There will be a dialog which warns against messing with the root partition. Since you’re a fearless knowledgeable expert, click OK.
- From Root on the left directory tree sidebar, navigate to /User/Library/Preferences/ and look for the file com.apple.Preferences.plist. Copy this file to your computer somewhere and make a backup copy of it in case things don’t work out.
- With your favorite text editor (we highly recommend Crimson Editor), open the plist file and add the string below into the line that is one long string of preferences (just copy and paste):
_KeyboardEmojiEverywhere
The position where you put it is not critical, just stick it somewhere in the middle making sure not to break any of the existing preference strings. The full string on our particular iPhone was, for your reference (it’s actually on one line despite the line breaks):_KeyboardCapsLock_KeyboardLastUsedOn Crimson Editor, it looked like this:
_KeyboardAutocorrection_KeyboardAutocapitalization
_KeyboardLastChosen_UISuspendedSettings
_KeyboardEmojiEverywhere_KeyboardPeriodShortcut
If you’d like to use our plist file and don’t mind using our keyboard preferences, download it here. - Copy the plist file back onto your iPhone in the directory you grabbed it from, then restart your phone. To access the emoji icons at any time, simply click on the globe icon on the keyboard until you see the emoji keyboard. To get back, click the globe icon again until you see the English keyboard. Enjoy showing off to your friends your new emoji powers!
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I’ve tried and it doesn’t seem to work. I have a bunch of com.apple.Preferences.plists One main one and then about 75 com.apple.Preferences.plists with extra letters after the plist example: com.apple.Preferences.plists.0A8bdlz. Each one is a different set of letters, but when I open them in a text editor, there doesn’t seem to be anything there. Are these files safe to delete, or are they used for something?
Thanks for your help.
Scott