If you’ve been texting a friend who uses emoji lately, you may have noticed an outline of an alien in a black box. It usually appears next to another emoji, such as a face or hand. Why is this happening? The simple answer is Apple’s new diverse emojis.
Diverse Emojis
Apple launched iOS 8.3 and Mac OS X 10.10.3, which brought an incredible new emoji keyboard that included new emojis with different skin tones, as well as different family structures and types of couples.
Unfortunately, if you haven’t updated your operating system, the new emojis won’t display properly. Your device will display the old version of the emoji next to the little alien. Here’s a good example, with iOS 8.3 on the left, and iOS 8.2 on the right:
How Do I Fix It?
Solving the problem is simple: update your device's operating system. On iPhone/iPad, navigate to Settings > General > Software Update. If your device doesn’t have enough space to download the 8.3 update, try connecting to your computer and updating it through iTunes.
On a Mac, click the Apple icon in the top-left and then click “Software Upgrade”. This will launch the Mac App Store, where you can upgrade for free.
How to Choose Between Emoji Skin-Tones
If you have iOS 8.3, choosing a different skin-tone for your emoji is easy: just tap and hold on the emoji, slide your finger to the desired tone, and let go. The process is similar on a Mac; just click and hold. This only works with the “human” emojis - the regular smiley faces are still yellow.
