Google is working on 'Audio Emoji,' and yes, the poop emoji will be supported

Update, April 30, 2024 (12:55 PM ET): The folks over at 9to5Google were able to get this feature actually working. They were able to confirm the six default Audio Emoji sounds (👏, 😂, 🎉, 😢, 🥁, and 💩) as well as show them in action. Each one has an animation attached as well as a sound effect. The video is here:

In case you can’t see the video, here are descriptions of what happens:

• 👏 — The sound of applause and animations of various hands clapping, including what appear to be alien hands
• 😂 — The sound of laughter with a collection of those swaying airmen flapping around in an animation
• 🎉 — The sound of people cheering with balloons and confetti animations
• 😢 — The classic sad trombone noise with an animation of an umbrella leaking rain
• 🥁 — A “buh-dum-tish” sound effect paired with a drumset animation
• 💩 — A fart sound paired with an animation of an inverted chocolate ice cream cone “plopping” down

This is also rolling out in the latest beta, so it is likely it will be available to all folks who use the standard dialer app in a few weeks.

Original article, April 30, 2024 (12:42 PM ET): Using emojis has become ubiquitous across all manners of text-based chats, whether they be text messages, YouTube comments, Reddit posts, or social media updates. However, one place that emojis have been absent is audio-based communication, but it looks like that’s going to change soon — for better or worse.

In the latest beta of the Google Phone app (v128.0.628175044-publicbeta), we have found strings that reference a new feature to be known as “Audio Emoji.” The screenshots below give you a good idea of what to expect:

The official description of Audio Emoji says this:

Express emotions and moods with sounds like applause, laughter, sad trombone, and more with tappable emoji while you’re in a call

Unfortunately, we can’t see what this interface looks like quite yet. We assume there will be an overlay on the dialer app that gives you quick controls to various emojis, but that’s just speculation.

While the description specifically mentions a few emojis that will almost certainly see support (likely 👏, 🤣, and ☹️), we also can see strings that mention other emojis — including one, in particular, that you probably don’t want to hear:

• Send drumroll Audio Emoji (probably 🥁)
• Send piano slide Audio Emoji (probably 🎹)
• Send celebration Audio Emoji (probably 🥳 or 🎉)
• Send poop Audio Emoji (almost certainly 💩)

Yes, it looks like Google is working on some sort of sound to represent the poop emoji. We don’t know what any of these sound like, but we can only imagine that one will be…unsettling (and also hilarious).

There’s no indication of whether this will be a Pixel-exclusive feature or something that the wider Android ecosystem will be able to access. Given how close we are to Google I/O and how silly this all is, we are leaning towards the assumption that this will be exclusive to Pixels, at least at first. After all, this seems like the kind of whimsical “isn’t this neat” thing that Google would want associated specifically with the Pixel brand. We could be wrong, though.

What do you think about this? Will you use Audio Emoji whenever they land? Let us know in the poll above and the comments below!