Samsung has now doubled the number of first-party AR Emoji expressions available to users of its Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus flagships. AR Emoji is a key feature of the two devices and effectively allows users to create 3D virtual representations of themselves for sharing in messages. Users take a picture of their own face and the smartphone generates those avatars automatically, allowing them to be shared via the stock Samsung keyboard app – or by copying and pasting them as stickers. When it launched alongside the Korean tech giant’s flagship at this year’s MWC 2018, it came with 18 default expressions. That number has now been doubled to 36, giving users a lot more to play around with when trying to let everyone know how they feel.
Samsung hasn’t provided a lot of detail about exactly what to expect with the new AR Emoji expressions but did share a short GIF containing a few of them. Bearing that in mind, getting the new AR Emoji expressions is fairly straightforward but will require an update to the camera app on either the Samsung Galaxy S9 or Galaxy S9 Plus. That’s because it’s been built directly into the app and is only currently available on those devices. Users simply need to navigate to the proprietary Galaxy Apps store on their handset and head over to the My Apps section. The update should already be available, though it might take a day or two to show up for everybody. Once that’s said and done, creating or sharing them can be accomplished from either the keyboard or the Camera app, just as before the update.
With that said, Samsung isn’t at all content to stop at 36 AR Emoji expressions either. Over the next few months, the company says it will be adding another 18 of those with yet another update. That will bring the total to 54, making it easier than ever for users to express themselves. There’s no way to really know whether or when more will be added following that next update.
