With the recent release of another flagship device from Apple—the iPhone X—comes features that can make frugal consumers into surefire buyers. But what it you can get one of this device’s feature into Android and even get it for free?
While some go gaga over this latest flagship’s best display and relatively bigger screen than its predecessors, not to mention its amazing cameras for the shutterbugs at heart. But, perhaps, another selling point of this lofty device is in its own rendition of the augmented reality application which turns its users into animated figures they could only dream of becoming—the so-called “Animoji.”
What is Animoji?
Literally, Animoji is a portmanteau between the words “animated” and “emoji” which taps on the iPhone X’s front-facing TrueDepth camera which mimics head gestures and portray them as animated 3D emoji based on certain figure of choice. These figures can vary between a cute panda, a happy-looking “poo,” a long-eared rabbit, a “spaced-out” alien, etc.
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To the aware, this feature is nothing new as originally popularized by Snapchat which would masks its users for fun. Unsurprisingly, other companies find the service too monopolized by Snapchat—to its credit, essentially—so they followed suit, with Facebook being among them recently.
Of course, this is not the real selling point why people would opt to spend a hefty $999 for an application that is only gimmicky at best. However, Apple has already shut down the idea that it’s coming to older iPhones, which means there’s no way to get it — at least officially.
As such, a third-party software developer produced a similar program which is meant to mimic the X’s Animoji application and literally offer them to both iOS and Android users for free—the application called MRRMRR.
This may sound like a rip-off application that you can only install in jailbroken devices, particularly iPhone X. In reality, however, this app is completely legitimate, both the iOS App Store and Google Play Store are already hosting the program for free download.
In fact, when we say “mimic,” MRRMRR literally copied what Animoji is offering in terms of contents. Meaning, you would still get to see the same emojis as you would in the original iOS 11 app. This is perhaps the developers’ way of saying that “imitation is the greatest form of flattery.”
The Caveat
Although the devs of MRRMRR are keen at flattering Apple for trying to imitate an app that is meant to be exclusive for the iPhone X, their ability to copy the original app’s features is sadly limited only to a certain extent.
For instance, unlike Animoji which could utilize on the device’s TrueDepth camera, the MRRMRR app could only tap on the front-facing camera of the same device. If you are an iPhone X user, there is simply no way that this app could replace Animoji.
Another contrasting difference that can be found with the original and the clone is in the visuals. The graphics are not as neat as that seen in Animoji and that the expression mapping is not as accurate.
The real benefit of using this app probably lies among Android users who could not afford to make a great leap towards Apple’s high-end flagship given its hefty price tag. In the Philippines, iPhone X is priced even higher than $999. You can check out the latest official price here.
You can download the MRRMRR app on both the Apple app store and Google Play.