Emoji icons, the Japanese style emoticons used in messages are super popular in the Japanese mobile market. So popular in fact that people love to accuse weak iPhone sales in Japan because the iPhone can’t use emoji. Personally, I chalk it up to the fact that in Japan the iPhone isn’t so forward-thinking a phone. After all, the iPhone also has only one screen, no video chat, no 3.2+ megapixel camera, no live TV capabilities, Wow I really want a Japanese cell phone, I mean… the point is some people think it’s no emoji that’s kept iPhone back in Japan. Well, emoji has arrived! And you don’t need to be in Japan to get it!

Emoji hides in iPhone firmware 2.2 but the feature is available only to iPhone users on the Japan’s SoftBank network. Or so they thought…

There are a few ways to activiate the emoji icons hiding in your iPhone in firmware 2.2:
1. Jailbreak your phone and install the emoji hack from Cydia,
2. Jailbreak your phone and edit the file /User/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Preferences.plist. Add the boolean key as ‘true’: KeyboardEmojiEverywhere,
3. Import a special vcard.vcf address book file then go thru a couple steps. Every time you want emoji, you have to type “emojia”, “emojii” or “emojiu” to have the emoji menu appear,
4. Go to the App Store and download Touch Dial Emoji for $5,
5. Spend $0.99 at the App Store on FrostyPlace.

The choice is yours.
(But I recommend FrostyPlace.)

FrostyPlace is an RSS reader for iPhone for frostyplace.com, a Mac news site in traditional Chinese coming out of Taiwan. You might not be able to read traditional Chinese and that’s just fine. What you want is for FrostyPlace to do all those little line commands you don’t really want to be bothered with to unlock emoji. And it will.

After you install it for the bargain price of 99 cents, go to Settings>General>Keyboard>International Keyboards>Japanese>Emoji. Turn emoji ON.

Go to SMS, hit the international keyboard icon, and presto! EMOJI POWER!