I realise that Microsoft has been adding to and reorganising Windows 10's Emoji system as recently as August in getting the Fall Creators Update up to steam. But regardless of branch (anyone have a phone still on the old 2016 Anniversary Update to check?), did you know that Windows 10 Mobile's keyboard can intelligently match what you type with the vast selection of emojis on offer?
This mainly applies when messaging people, of course, whether in SMS, Unigram, Whatsapp, or similar.
[By chance, I've done the screenshots using a text field in Skype, which is ironic - as a commenter points out - since Skype UWP for Windows 10 has been broken in terms of passing on these emoji for a while! - still you get the idea. Just don't use this IN Skype!]
So, as an example, I'm chatting to Rafe here. And I'm 'sad', i.e. that's the word I just typed. But I don't need to hunt through panels of emojis to find a 'sad' face. Windows 10 Mobile is clever enough that, with 'sad' as the last word I typed on screen, I can tap the emoji control on the keyboard and instantly a row of suitable matching emojis appear beneath the text entry line. That's pretty cool.
It's not just emotions though, as long as there are emojis that roughly match whatever it is you're talking about then it's worth stabbing at the emoji control. As examples here, I tried after typing 'dancing' and got two matches, both of which look about right. Note that the searches are somewhat fuzzy though, in terms of keywords. For example, here I tried after the word 'lift' and got four matches, two of which were the same as for 'dancing' (though in fairness the same graphic could apply in terms of sticking out one's arm!), one of which was the same as a match for 'laughing'(!), and the 'thumbs up' emoji, which seems appropriate for asking for a lift.
What about you? Do you use this feature of Windows 10 Mobile's keyboard? Are you appalled that yours truly didn't know about it, or was this news to you too?!