If some of your friends and family members have the iPhone who text you using an emoji emoticons, you’ve probably noticed getting random blank spaces in your text messages. But this isn’t because they’re sending you blank messages, its because Android doesn’t natively support the use of emoji. Thankfully there is a solution to this problem, and that is the purpose of this article:

1. Download a text messaging application to replace the stock one on your phone. I recommend either ChompSMS or GoSMS (both of which are available for free on Google Play).
2. Open the app and compose a new text message.
3. Now try to insert an emoticon inside your text message. On ChompSMS, you can do this by pressing the + button to the left of the text field. Make sure to press on the different emoticon tabs.
4. Doing this should open a pop up prompting you to download the emoji plugin from Google Play. Click OK.
5. Download the emoji plugin.
6. When you go back to the app, you should now be able to use emoji emoticons.

Since you’re downloading an app to replace the stock messaging app, you should go to the stock messaging app’s settings and disable notifications so you don’t get double notifications (as both the stock and ChompSMS will notify you). To do this, open the stock (or preloaded) messaging app and press menu>settings. Look for where it says “Notifications” and uncheck the box. Now only ChompSMS will notify you for new text messages (which is what we want).