Spock's ‘Live Long and Prosper’ handsign comes to WhatsApp

Finally, Star Trek-minded Android users get to send and receive the emoji signifying the classic Vulcan salute: live long and prosper.

 

The LLAP emoji along with those for skin tones are courtesy of the WhatsApp app, Android Police reported.

 

"(W)orth noting is the new Vulcan Salute emoji (that's the Spock hand in layman's terms) that appears at the end of the gestures. This particular sign was added by Apple in iOS 8.3, but it was hidden and required some shenanigans for people to use it. WhatsApp brought it to Android and made it visible and accessible to all, because...," it said.

 

These new emojis help Android users catch up with their iOS counterparts, who have had them for some time.

 

Android Police also noted skin tone emojis have been on WhatsApp's iOS application for a long time and officially appeared on Unicode's version 8 update.

 

Until now, Android users "could only view these emojis if they were sent by your peers (as of the app's Material update) or use WhatsApp Web to send them."

 

With the updated app, it said a user who adds an emoji inside the app can scroll down past the regular facial expressions to the emojis with human elements like people, hand gestures, and some activities.

 

"(Y)ou'll see that most of these have a little triangle at the bottom, to denote more options. Tap one of them and you get the now familiar choice of skin tone modifiers including yellow and five gradual shades from milk white to chocolate brown. Once you pick a tone, it becomes the default for this particular emoji. From then on, a regular tap will insert the emoji in the skin tone you chose, and a tap-and-hold will bring back the selector to change it," it said. — Joel Locsin/TJD, GMA News