Free Emoji on the iPhone: IconBoard
A search of the iTunes store for “Emoji” show many results. Veeeery many. But due to certain boneheaded (I think) Canadian laws, I can only download free apps with my type of account. There are three free Emoji apps in the first page of results, two look dumb. So, I go for the other one: IconBoard.
For those who don’t know, Emoji is a Japanese word meaning “picture letter”. That’s exactly what they are: emoticons. Cool, cool, emoticons, used often on mobile devices (people in Japan often use them in texts. I should mention that these icons are totally awesome. Here’s a sample:
And there are more.
Anyway, most Emoji apps enable a special Emoji Keyboard which can be activated on your iPhone iPod touch. IconBoard uses a more round-about method, but it works very well. IconBoard gives you a selection of icons, which can be copied to the clipboard (in groups, of course. Not one at a time). For some, it might be an inconvenience, but it’s fine by my standards.
IconBoard gives you five main categories: Emoji (within is faces; what I can only assume is random, although the icon is a cowbell; animals and weather; vehicles, building and commercial stuff; and numbers and symbols, including clock faces), Miscellaneous, Digits, Stars, and More (within is Math, Arrows, Greek, and Currency).
Each category features roughly 84 icons, with the exception of the Emoji and More categories, which probably hold 5/6 and 4 times that, respectively. By tapping on an icon, you add it to the list of icons to be copied. You can edit this with the regular keyboard (including adding characters in between, etc.), although you can’t start new paragraphs, since it’s only a textbox. Once you’re done, you just tap “Copy”. That’s it. The text is copied to the clipboard. All you have to do is paste it into an app.
It’s very easy to use, works well, and it’s free. What else could one ask for me. And man, those icons are awesome.
Overall, IconBoard is a pretty darn good deal, although it might not look like it at first. Download it and take a look. No harm in trying!
