Paul Morris on November 19, 2017, 9:31 am

How To Get iPhone X Animoji-Like Feature On Any Smartphone, Sort Of

Chances are that if you have ever seen Apple’s Animoji feature in action, which harnesses the power of the iPhone X TrueDepth camera system to track a user’s facial movements and project them onto an animated 3D emoji, then you will have been impressed.

It may not be something that you would use every day of the week, or actually rush out and buy an iPhone X for, but it’s a wonderful use of the new tech in the device, and it’s certainly insanely fun to play around with.

But what would you say if you wanted that feature and could actually get it on any smartphone – iOS and Android – without purchasing the $999 iPhone X? Well, there’s an app for that. On the face of things – did you see what we did there? – the MRRMRR app, which is available on both the iOS App Store and Android’s Google Play Store, looks like another one of those apps that takes your face and augments entertaining features over the top for that shameless selfie experience. Snapchat and MSQRD have already pretty much cornered that particular market, so MRRMRR must do more, right? Well, actually, it does. In addition to offering the dog ears selfie experience, and being able to apply real-time filters to what’s being seen in the viewfinder, the app also essentially replicates the Animoji functionality – as best as it possibly can given the limitations of the hardware.

Simply jump into the Emoji section of the app in the horizontal menu and you are greeted by a shameless copy of the Animoji characters that Apple offers in iOS 11 on iPhone X. There’s the lovely cute panda bear, the creepiest looking poop you ever did see, and even the very fun alien and spaced-out looking chicken. Once selected, the functionality is largely the same, with the user able to record the experience and then send it through social media, save it to the device, or issue it via iMessage.

The app is even built into the iMessage system so it’s very easy to call up the MRRMRR filters within Apple’s Messages app. Best of all, it’s entirely free.

But it’s important to note here that since it doesn’t have access to TrueDepth sensor like tech on older iPhones or Android devices, it only uses normal front-facing camera to try and achieve same effect, which – as expected – is not remotely close to the real-time face tracking of TrueDepth sensor on iPhone X. The difference in result can easily be seen when you use the app on unsupported device Vs. Apple’s Animoji on iPhone X. The expression mapping are nowhere near as accurate as Animoji and the graphics of emoji aren’t as neat or good-looking as Apple’s version. But if you don’t plan on spending $999 on a smartphone, this is the closest you can get to Apple’s Animoji on non-iPhone X device.

(Download: MRRMRR for iPhone, iPad on the App Store)
(Download: MRRMRR for Android on the Play Store)