The sorry state of emoji on older Macs 🥺

[Riccardo Sartori]

So my main home computer is an ageing iMac 27". With a new solid state internal drive and an healthy RAM boost it still serves me well. The only drawback is that the last OS I could install was macOS High Sierra.

Now, I haven’t heard many good things about Catalina, and can survive without software that requires it, be it NetNewsWire or SF Symbols. 

I still receive security updates and, while I can’t obtain nice new fonts, I can at least still download the latest versions of Apple’s own.

Except, I cannot. 

I am stuck with the Apple Color Emoji font bundled with my OS and, while I can live without typing a raccoon or a smiling face with smiling eyes and three hearts, I already encounter mysterious empty boxes regularly and presumably will more often in the future.

[Ralf Herrmann]

Wasn’t aware this isn’t updated for older systems as well, but yeah, doesn’t exactly fall under “security updates”. 

[Riccardo Sartori]

1 hour ago, Ralf Herrmann said:

doesn’t exactly fall under “security updates”. 

It does not, indeed, and given Apple’s solution for colour fonts, it’s a fairly large download too.

Nonetheless, I would be glad if it were offered as an option somewhere.