Emojis have changed the way we communicate, at least when it comes to written messages - millions of us rely on them as a quick and casual way to speak to others.
While we all know that the emoji library expands every so often, as the likes of Apple agree to adding new options each year, you might not have realized that Apple users actually have a complicated way to access a secret emoji.
If you want to send the Apple logo to your friends in a chat, whether it's to show you're at an Apple Store or just because you talk about iPhones a lot, there's no emoji in the normal lineup to oblige you.
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However, a few steps can get you an Apple logo via a workaround - we've laid these out below.
Get the Apple logo emoji on MacOS
If you're on a MacBook or another Mac computer, getting the Apple logo emoji is pretty easy - you just have to use a keyboard shortcut: Option-Shift-K.
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Press those three buttons at the same time while in a typing field and it should paste in the Apple logo, so it's just a matter of making that part of your muscle memory.
Get the Apple logo emoji on iPhone or iPad
On iPhone and iPad it's a little more complicated.
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You can make it work by using a text replacement, which isn't too hard to set up - the steps are laid out below:
- Open the Settings app and tap on General
- Find Keyboard and tap on it, then go to Text Replacement
- Tap the "+" sign to add a new replacement
- Find the Apple logo online to copy and paste into the Phrase field - for example, from this Apple forum page
- In the Shortcut field, choose your shortcut - for example, "applelogo"
This will set up a shortcut so that any time you type in your chosen shortcut, when you press space it'll replace it with the Apple logo that you pasted in, letting you quickly insert it into messages whenever you like.
However, it's worth knowing that it won't always appear properly - only Apple services and devices reliably show it up, so if you're texting a friend on an Android phone, for instance, it's likely to not appear quite as you'd hope.
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This means that it's not quite the one-size-fits-all secret that will wow everyone if you use it, but it's still a fun way to get access to an emoji that few people will be able to match if they try to copy you.