Monday, 4 December 2017

Google is fixing its disastrous burger and beer emoji today with Android 8.1 release

We never expected the outrage over the design of a hamburger emoji to bubble up to the point where Google's CEO had to personally intervene, but such is 2017. And today, our long cheese-on-bun global nightmare comes to an end with the public release of Android Oreo 8.1, which fixes the unappetizing glyph.
Android 8.1 also adds a new beer emoji, which no longer sees frothing foam inexplicably remain at the top of the mug after half the beer has been downed.
Here's what the offending emoji looked like in 8.0:
Would you go to a joint like this? No.
Here are the much-improved new characters in 8.1:
Google's new burger emoji now follows Microsoft's approach of patty-cheese-tomato-lettuce. This is far more acceptable, though personally I applaud LG for holding the tomato.
The next time you use your Pixel 2 XL to suggest meeting friends for burgers and drinks, think of what it took to get to this point. And spare a thought for the Samsung owners in your group, who'll still have to deal with an even more ridiculous character that puts lettuce between the cheese and the patty.
Android Oreo 8.1 is rolling out today (Tuesday) depending on where you are in the world, and comes alongside the new lightweight “Go” edition that manufacturers can choose to install on low-spec phones.
Aside from emergency emoji fixes, 8.1 enables support for the Visual Core image processing chip found in the new Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, letting third-party developers access the camera's impressive HDR+ feature. The update will be available for all Pixel phones as well as the Pixel C tablet, the Nexus 5X, and the Nexus 6P.


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