The new build of Windows 11, 22478, is available now on the Dev channel for users of the Windows Insider program. In the list of changes and new features included, we find that of a new set of emojis with Fluent design.
But users have received this new set of emojis with surprise and disappointment, finding that Microsoft has broken a promise it had insisted on several times since the announcement of the existence of Windows 11.
The promise It was that the aforementioned emojis would be, for the first time in Windows, in 3D… and not in the usual two dimensions that these new emojis share with all their predecessors:
As can be seen in the image that heads the article, the image released a few months ago by Microsoft made it clear that we would see emojis with a subtle and cute ‘playdough effect’ that is nowhere to be seen.
Brandon LeBlanc himself, senior program manager for the Windows Insider Program, has ruled out on Twitter that it is an error Or that the new set is some kind of version of ‘transition’ towards future 3D emojis:
No, for Windows 11 we’re using the 2D versions. Thanks!
– Brandon LeBlanc (@brandonleblanc) October 14, 2021
The problem is that, when users began to accuse him of ‘scam’, claiming that the Windows Twitter accounts and Windows UK they had been promoting images of the three-dimensional emojis as typical of Windows 11 until literally a week ago, LeBlanc settled the matter by denying the major:
“No, they didn’t scam you. You’re exaggerating this a bit – they just used the wrong graphics. Sorry, we’ll make sure to use the correct ones in the future.”
Microsoft’s design team made that clear in July
However, the official blog of the Microsoft design team dedicated an article in July to talk precisely about the aesthetic renovation of Windows emojis, and all the included videos and images showed, without exception, 3D emojis. And, in case there was still some room for error, the text (signed by Claire Anderson, “art director and emojilogue”), stated the following:
“We opted for 3D designs instead of 2D and we choose to animate most of our emoji. While you will see them implemented in the product over the next several months, we wanted to share a sneak peek with you in honor of World Emoji Day. “
No, it does not seem that we are facing “the wrong graphics”: Anderson makes it very clear that we would see these emojis in three dimensions both in Microsoft Teams and Windows “throughout 2022”.
Regardless of the fact that many users have every right in the world to feel scammed, the big question is what has changed at Microsoft so that the hundreds of designs that they had already designed and ready to launch are now going to be left in the inkwell.