Apple Memoji Vs. Samsung’s AR Emoji: Comparison Review

Apple and Samsung’s rivalry has extended to their augmented reality projects. When the Cupertino giant introduced Animoji for the iPhone X last year, Samsung responded by launching the AR Emoji feature for its Galaxy S9 flagship series earlier this. Interestingly, Apple has announced Memoji, a new AR feature for iOS 12 that appears to be the company’s response to AR Emoji. But which is better between the two?

AppleInsider got the chance to do a side-by-side comparison of Memoji and AR Emoji, and the technology news outlet’s verdict leans toward Apple’s new AR offering. The site considered different factors when it judged the two features, but in the end the newly announced Memoji was the one that stood out between the two.

One aspect that Memoji does better than AR Emoji is facial tracking. Apple’s implementation reportedly has a higher degree of accuracy that results to more realistic animations. Certain expressions on AR Emoji, especially smiling, appear creepy. On the contrary, Memoji creates more natural smiles and better renders of expressions.

Memoji also notably does a better job at portraying a variety of emotions than AR Emoji. The former can correctly portray sad, happy and neutral emotions. While AR Emoji is capable of tracking eye blinks well, Memoji captures winks better, according to the outlet.

The accuracy of Memoji extends to eye positions. The upcoming iOS 12 feature can track user’s eyes when they go side to side and even when the user rolls them. On the other hand, AR Emoji cannot do the same thing because it is incapable of detecting eye positions. One area that the two are good at is tracking lips, but only Apple’s Memoji has tongue detection.

It is important to note that Memoji is only limited to creating animated avatars for the user’s head. Meanwhile, AR Emoji creates a full body representation, albeit not the most accurate one. The presence of a body on AR Emoji is also not that big of a deal, because the Galaxy S9’s feature does not track bodily movements.

CNET has also tried out Memoji, and it also thinks that the new AR feature that Apple is working on easily beats Samsung’s AR Emoji. The site pointed out that unlike AR Emoji, Memoji offers a lot of customization options for the 3D avatars it makes. For instance, Memoji has options for curly hair — something that the AR Emoji lacks. Memoji also has more skin tones to choose from.