Tech News : How to Activate Emoticon Symbol on Keyboard for Android Phone

Earlier this month, iOS users got some sweet new emoticon symbols -- including a secret (but easily unlockable) Spock Vulcan salute emoticon. But what about Android users? While Android has been a little slower to make emoticon as commonplace as Apple, that doesn't mean you can't be part of the cool crowd if you're not an iPhone user. Here's how to activate emoticon on your keyboard for your Android device:

Step 1: Check to see if your Android device can see emoticon Some Android devices can't even see emoticon characters -- if your iOS buddies keep sending you text messages that appear as squares, this is you. If you're not sure if your device supports emoticon, you can easily find out by opening up your Web browser and searching for "emoticon" in Google. If your device supports emoticon, you'll see a bunch of smiley faces in the search results. If your device does not, you'll see a bunch of squares.

If your device does not support emoticon, you can still get emoticon by using a third-party social messaging app such as WhatsApp or LINE. However, you will only be able to see emoticon inside these apps; any SMS messages you receive will not continue to not display emoticon.

Step 2: Turn on the emoticon keyboard Even if your Android device supports emoticon, your default keyboard may not include them. If you have Android 4.4 or higher, the standard Google keyboard has an emoticon option (just type a word, such as "smile" to see the corresponding emoticon). You can change your default keyboard by going to Settings > Language and input > Default and choosing the keyboard you want to use.

You can switch between keyboards by swiping down to open the Notifications area and tapping Choose input method.

You can only switch between keyboards while you're typing in a text box area, but you'll know this because a small keyboard icon will appear in your Notifications bar.

If you're using a Samsung device, the default Samsung keyboard has built-in emoticon that you can access by tapping and holding the microphone button and then pressing the smiley face icon. Step 3: Download a third-party keyboard If your device didn't come with a keyboard that has built-in emoticon, you can download a third-party keyboard that does. The most obvious choice is Google Keyboard (available to all Android devices running 4.0 and higher), but other keyboards such as Swype, SwiftKey, and Minuum also have built-in emoticon. Finally, a small warning: If you're on a limited texting plan, you may want to check to make sure your device sends emoticon as emoticon symbols (i.e., Unicode characters), and not as MMS or picture messages.

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