Apple Genmoji hands-on first look: It’s fun

One of the new Apple Intelligence features that will come with iOS 18.2, and quite possibly the most intriguing one, happens to be Genmoji. 

Fueled by the Apple Intelligence framework, this new addition to iOS lets you unleash your creativity when texting and create unique emojis that will perfectly describe the unique situations we find ourselves in every day. 

This concept is not unique by any means: Google was among the first to come up with such a creative twist on the plain old emoji with Emoji Kitchen, which is still alive and kicking and quite possibly a much better tool for custom emoji. But we digress.

Genmoji: Emoji for the rest of us

For starters, Genmoji is a tiny button residing inside your emoji keyboard picker, which is so nondescript that you may easily miss it the first time. I know for a fact that I did. 

You can also access Genmoji by simply searching for a non-existent emoji, which will prompt the keyboard to flash a “Create New Emoji” suggestion, which will also allow you to create a custom emoji. 

Once inside the Genmoji creator, you have a standard Apple Intelligence-themed text bar where you write your prompt and a preview carousel above it, allowing you to see what the custom emoji tool has come up with. 

With Genmoji, what you type is usually what you get. Here’s me trying to come up with a few animal-related emojis that don’t technically exist in the standard emoji selection:

You can also create custom Genmoji with people identified in your Photos app. To do so, simply start your query with the name of the person you want to use, followed by the custom prompt you want. 

While in Image Playground you can upload a photo during this process, you can’t do so here, which means that the Photos app must have already indexed, and you should have identified the person with their name for them to be selectable. You can still default to a generic emoji person, though. 

Genmoji does a pretty decent job, nailing the likeness of the emoji to the real person. It also does a decent job at conveying the prompt you’ve input to the best of its abilities, so that everything appears mostly coherent and in synergy with the rest of the emoji selection. 

Genmoji: The limitations

Of course, Genmoji is still in beta, it says so on the tin. That’s one of the reasons why one can’t be too critical of its current capabilities. 

Presently, it’s easy to overwhelm the Genmoji tool, especially if you dial in more than three parameters at the same time. More complex prompts are a no-no and either don’t go through or won’t generate properly. 

For example, if you ask Genmoji to generate a “sorcerer eating a lollipop”, it will throw an error, but if you ask it to generate a “person in a sorcerer’s costume eating a lollipop”, it will deliver an acceptable result.

Another limitation is the capabilities of it all. Want to generate a one-eyed fox, a foxlops of sorts? You’re out of luck: Genmoji isn’t that capable yet, and provides a couple of regular foxes.

Genmoji vs Google Emoji Kitchen

One of Genmoji’s main rivals is Google’s Emoji Kitchen, which allows you to mix-and-match two emojis to achieve pretty interesting results. All of those are pre-rendered, though, so it’s a more standard tool versus an AI-generated feature. 

Interestingly, I feel that Google’s Emoji kitchen isn’t the more capable, but is the funnier tool that delivers more creative custom emoji. Sure, it lacks the ability to create a custom emoji with your face or body, but it does deliver some fascinating and more niche results. 

Remember the one-eyed fox? Here’s a direct Genmoji vs Emoji Kitchen comparison:

Genmoji: Impressions and summary

No two ways about it: Genmoji is cool, possibly the coolest new Apple Intelligence feature so far. 

It’s fresh, it lets you unleash your creativity and fill the gaps in your communication by delivering custom emoji, and it’s pretty promising even now when it’s still in fairly early beta. 

Paired with Apple Intelligence, it’s the highlight of Apple Intelligence so far, and while generative images and emojis of such sorts are already a few years’ old, it’s nice to finally have a free and built-in tool of such proportions inside iOS itself.

Should you upgrade just for the sake of a couple of custom emojis? Of course not! But if you’re already boasting an iPhone 15 Pro/Max or an iPhone 16 series device, then having these on board definitely wouldn’t hurt!