Overall, Android 17 is fixing some of Android’s annoying quirks, most notably addressing the app problem with tablets and foldables, so it promises to be a positive operating system update.
But I don’t think that’s the case with the redesigned emoji. To me, they look a little more boring than what we already have — and Google’s justification shows it doesn’t quite understand why people use these stickers in the first place.
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Wait, what’s happening to emoji?
Google’s icon redesign
Oh, you missed the news? With Android 17, Google is giving emoji a “glow up,” by replacing the tried-and-true current icons with “a new emoji collection,” according to the company.
This new suite of emoji is called Noto 3D, and the key difference between them and the existing roster of icons is that they’ve been redesigned to look 3D. In some cases, this just means a reflective sheen has been added to imply lighting, and in others a wider color gradient to achieve the same purpose.
Those aren’t the only changes, with some specific emoji changing further; the Jack-o’-lantern now has a light inside, for example, and different icons have changed color, pose, or, in some cases, what’s actually depicted. And those are a few examples from the mere handful that Google has shown so far.
According to Google, the icons were all hand-drawn — despite the company being unable to shut up about Gemini, it clearly had the good sense to hire actual artists for the emoji. The company also says that, to begin with, only Pixel phones will get these new shapes.
Why is Google making this change?
Apparently 2D emoji are flat
In justifying its Noto 3D redesign, Google explained that the new models “bring a touch of physicality” to online chatting, because apparently “our feelings have weight, but they often fall flat when expressed online.”
It’s hard not to be sarcastic about this justification — if a 2D emoji isn’t sufficiently expressing a concept, simply making it look like an inflated balloon isn’t going to help — and most of the responses I’ve seen online criticize the changes.
Many people are pointing out that the overly detailed emoji are going to be hard to discern on a small phone screen, or are criticizing that an emoji redesign seems to be one of Google’s biggest upgrades in Android 17.
But the ones that get closest to the truth to me are the commenters calling out how Noto 3D looks a lot like iOS emoji. Most iOS emoji have a similar 3D look to Noto’s icons, and it seems possible that Google is trying to bring the two operating systems’ icons closer together.
In theory, that’s not a bad thing — you need to make sure users on different platforms are sending, and receiving, icons that clearly have the same meaning. This is likely why Google’s classic “blobs” emoji were exiled. But there’s a downside too: iOS emoji are often criticized for lacking personality, and these new Noto icons do too.
A lack of personality
Taking the emotion from emoji
I use emoji all the time, and I’d wager I have that in common with a large majority of the population. These icons have been in our lives for decades now, and as a society we’ve instilled them with a meaning beyond the literal.
Sometimes, this is collective: the nail polish emoji is used to show you’re unbothered, a clown face is an accusation of someone being idiotic, and we all know what the eggplant means. In other cases, we add personal meanings to these icons: my partner and I use the bee and turtle icons to refer to each other.
We’ve managed to create this implicit language while the emoji are 2D; Google’s assertion that communications fall flat without 3D is clearly incorrect.
A great example is the smirking cat face, which I use so frequently that it took until writing this article to realize it wasn’t the main cat face emoji.
This icon has a smirk; it adds a little playfulness in some contexts, or initiative and gumption in others. When you send the icon, you’re not always just saying “cat”; you might be conveying the ideas or feelings that the expression represents. The same goes for all the various animal emoji available.
A little emoji can hold this weight because it’s sufficiently visually separated from the thing it’s trying to represent, simply by how it looks. When you send a simple, 2D animal, which is flat and has simple colors and textures, it’s easy to add meaning beyond the surface level.
The addition of 3D, which ostensibly intends to add life to an icon, actually reveals further how far from real life this icon is. It makes it harder to instill it with extra meaning. A smirking cat no longer implies various ideas; it’s now just a kids’ cartoon reject.
People who’ve heard of the uncanny valley will already understand this concept. This is a psychological effect in which human-like facsimiles can feel less human, as they get closer to reality.
It holds true for any representation of reality, though, including in emoji: the closer you get to a lifelike representation of an image, the harder it is for this icon to retain its symbolic significance beyond what’s being depicted.
If you’ve ever seen a modern 3D-animated movie and struggled to get invested in the story, especially if it falls into that soulless anti-art-style that most online streaming services and kids’ studios use, you’ve proven my point.
Among the revealed Noto 3D icons, the more noticeable redesigns reflect this effect. The alien face, for example, looks more like a generic smiley face but with a gray head. The fireworks icon looks less obviously like fireworks. The chick emerging from an egg looks a lot more like a Minion than I’d like; gone is that innocent, fresh look, and therefore any meanings it could convey.
In the grand scheme of things, Noto 3D’s rollout isn’t the biggest Android 17 change, and beyond all the online grumbling, it’s not going to cause tidal waves in society or the tech sphere. If Google had quietly updated the icons without mentioning it, I’d be unhappy — but not enough to write op-eds about it.
But stripping emotions and personality from some of the icons, and then acting like the 2D emoji weren’t sufficient, suggests that Google doesn’t quite understand how people use emoji.
A cat isn’t always just a cat, nor is a clown a clown or an eggplant … you get it. They’re representative of more, and work better in that function when they’re simpler and 2D.
It all makes the side-grade a little more of a downgrade than I’d like — but I’d still rather use Android emoji than iOS ones, any day.
