Guides for creating custom IOS emoticons?
I'm looking for a guide on creating custom emoticons for iOS applications on the iPhone. From what I've read so far it seems to have gotten much easier to do yet I can't locate a tutorial on it.
My research so far on the subject dictates that emoticons you can create may only be useable on a app only platform since the authentic emoticons are based on Unicode built into the phone. Is it possible for someone to add their custom emoticons to the Unicode keyboard on the iphone or would they have to be accepted by he Unicode controlling authorities, if this is even possible at all? It seems feasible that you could activate custom emoticons of your choosing for the Unicode keyboard, or a separate app keyboard accessible in the standard text menu, if your emoticon app presented a unique and highly useful platform for a specific niche, is this a possibility?
Lastly, how difficult is it to create a custom emoticon app? I've seen mixed responses but the more recent they were it always appeared that it became easier to do in more recent the times.
Answer
Short answer: you can't create a universal emoticon keyboard like the popular emoji. This is because, like you said, those emoji are mapped to Unicode already in the phone, which is why people without the emoji app installed can still see them. There's nothing stopping your specific app from converting custom Unicode and mapping it to custom emoticons, but these will only be visible in your app -- nowhere else in the phone.
To my understanding, you wouldn't even need your emoticon set to be "approved" if you wanted it to work on all devices -- you would just need manufacturers (like Apple) to build the mapping from the Unicode to your emoticon into the system by default, which seems unlikely.