Yesterday was, of course, World Emoji Day and in celebration Apple has adorned the iTunes Movies storefront with a colourful merry-go-round that utilises the most popular smartphone characters to portray older films as well as the latest movie releases.
The blockbusters included Skull Island, Kong, Get Out, Beauty and the Beast, Arrival, Logan, and Stephen King’s It. The emoji collection is merely a visual upgrade of the store with no prices shown.
Apple regularly updates the look of iTunes Movies to concur with new movie launches. For example, it recently used a LEGO makeover to mark the digital launch of The LEGO Batman Movie. Earlier last month, a couple of decade-based movie collections went on sale on iTunes to provide users with the opportunity to buy bundles of movies at reduced prices.
Apple also celebrated World Emoji Day with a preview of all the latest emoji characters set to become available on macOS, iOS and watchOS later this year.
A few of the emoji previewed yesterday included Bearded Person, Woman with Headscarf, Sandwich, Breastfeeding, T-Rex, Coconut, Zombie, Zebra, Star-Struck, Elf and Exploding Head. All were included in the latest Unicode 10 standard released last month.
The new emoji collection will make it easier (and more fun) for owners of Apple devices to express a wider array of feelings, faces, creatures and animals.
Apple is yet to announce the release date for the new range of emoji characters for Macs, iPads, iPhones and Apple Watches, but commentators believe the launch will coincide with the release of iOS 11 in the fall of 2017, or soon after.
World Emoji Day is also celebrated on the iOS App Store where, according to the company, it has featured apps that highlight how much fun users can have with the different smartphone characters.