Apple’s concept of Memoji took of mapping facial expressions to animated characters further in iOS by enabling users to create their avatars. The smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi is back at it again, this time with a blatant copy of Apple’s Memoji functionally.
A new smartphone launch from Xiaomi blatantly copies the feature, but with so few differences from Apple’s version, it may be considered a rip-off by many critics. Apple in September 2017 launched the Animoji as an iPhone X-exclusive component of enabling the high-end smartphone’s users to watch their facial expressions rendered in augmented reality as one of 12 animated emoji caricatures that includes pig, fox, rabbit, panda, and poop icons.
It added on June 4, 2018 user-customizable Memoji faces to Animoji and also without changing the composition of the Messages, which hit all iPhone X, XR, and XS models with a final public release in September 2018.
While XiaomiToday announced that the feature was available in the Xiaomi Mi 8 Explorer Edition in 2018, the newer version is much closer to the functionality offered by Apple, with full 3D animation and full customization options. The close similarity to Apple’s version, down to the name, has caused some users in China to highlight the seemingly blatant copying to Xiaomi. Still, the smartphone producer pointed out the feature’s previous availability.
Since Memojis weren’t original anyway, Apple will likely take no action in this case despite the similarities of the avatars and the name that is only one letter off. Emojis is a planned feature for Xiaomi’s to-be-launched Mi CC9 smartphone, scheduled to be in China on July 5. Pre-orders started today.
