Hordes of Twitter users rich enough to have an iPhone X have been using its most charming feature rather cleverly. Animoji, for those who don't know, are animated emojis on iPhone X that mimic facial expressions using the same technology Face ID is built on.
Animoji Karaoke
Luckily, clever Twitter users immediately found the best use for these cutesy digital animals and creatures: karaoke. They play a song, they fire up Animoji, and then the user lip-syncs along to the playing track, and the Animoji mimics accordingly, giving the illusion that it's singing along.
Apple promptly adapted it into an official iPhone X ad not long after the trend boomed on Twitter, releasing it in November 2017 featuring creatures bobbing and singing along to "All Night" by Big Boi. It has now released a couple of new ones. The first sees a dog and poop emoji rapping along to Migos's hit song "Stir Fry," while the second features an alien emoji singing "Redbone," styled to mimic the cover for Childish Gambino's album Awaken, My Love! Unicorn emojis serve as backup singers, which then slowly become spiral galaxies of cats, pigs, robots, and pandas. "Trippy" is one word for it.
2018 Grammy Awards
The ads aired during the 2018 Grammy Awards, where both Migos and Childish Gambino were nominated for multiple trophies, including Awaken, My Love! for Album of the Year and Migos's Culture for Best Rap Album.
The Animoji karaoke trend was ignited by Fast Company tech editor Harry McCracken when he tweeted a fox Animoji version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." Apple had not previously promoted using Animojis for karaoke performances, but once it saw the viral potential of the videos, it fully went along with it.
iPhone X
Animoji is one of the exclusive features found on iPhone X, aside from advanced facial recognition technology Face ID. The phone was released in November last year, to generally positive reviews. However, there are some rumors that sales aren't quite living up to Apple's expectations, which might lead to a production halt this summer. Other reports claim the iPhone X was the best-selling smartphone during the holiday period, with 29 million units allegedly sold during the fourth quarter of 2017.
Thoughts on the iPhone X? Do you like the newly released Animoji ads? As always, if you have anything to share, feel free to sound them off in the comments section below!
