Unlock the Secret Emoticon Keyboard on Your iPhone

iOS is one of the most refined and optimized mobile operating systems for iPhones developed and maintained by Apple. The company is always focused on implementing multiple new features, hidden features, plenty of improvements, etc. Well, the chances are also high that even if you’re using an iPhone for years, you may not know how to Unlock the Secret Emoticon Keyboard on Your iPhone quite easily.

Emojis & Animojis are loved by millions of users and device manufacturers also provide unlimited numbers of emojis or animojis on their stock keyboard or within the software. But before these emoji crazes, people were using ‘Emoticons‘. Luckily, that old-fashioned trend is still alive on your iPhone (Apple keyboard) that you can use immediately.

Unlock the Secret Emoticon Keyboard on Your iPhone

Although emoticons aren’t bright, colorful, and that much of impressive when it comes to sharing with others due to the lack of animations or visuals, still they’ve cute expressions and a very subtle look in any way. It basically feels like the previous generation of emojis which is really cool.

For example, “Shrug” (¯\_(?)_/¯) was one of the most used typographical symbols most probably in the past until Apple added the shrug emoji in the emoji family. It’s worth mentioning that your current keyboard doesn’t have all Unicode characters to get all emoticons. Whereas copying emoticons from the web and pasting was an option but that’s not handy at all. So, follow the steps below to do so:

• Head over to the Settings app on your iPhone.
• Go to General > Tap on Keyboard.
• Select Keyboards > Tap on Add New Keyboard.

• Scroll down the list of languages or just type Japanese and select it.
• Next, you’ll see two keyboard options such as ‘Kana’ and ‘Romaji’.
• Select any one of them and tap on Done. [We’ve chosen Kana]
• Now, head over to the specific chat application or iMessage, etc where you want to type emoticons.
• Now, tap on the typing bar or text field and the keyboard layout will automatically popup.

• Long-press on the globe/internet icon from the bottom left side of the Apple keyboard to access the list of downloaded keyboard languages.
• Here you can see the Japanese Kana language. Just tap on it select.

Using Japanese Kana Keyboard:

1. Tap on the ^_^ key to get the secret emoticon keyboard.

2. Now, tap on the down arrow icon to expand the full list of emoticons.

3. You’re all set to type emoticons according to your preference.

Using Japanese Romaji Keyboard:

1. If you’re using the Romaji keyboard on your iPhone, then make sure to tap on the 123 key.

2. Select the ^_^ key and tap on the down arrow icon to expand the list of all emoticons.

Please Note: You can also swipe left on the row (besides the down arrow icon) to easily access all the emoticons. It’ll help you to select emoticons faster and better.

That’s it, guys. We assume this guide was helpful to you. For additional queries, you can comment below.