Read first about EmojiPort

Emojis have been integrated into iOS as a keyboard. All emojis you see on the keyboard are defined as lists within the system, varying across iOS versions. Newer iOS versions usually include more emojis so the users at the lower versions won't be able to use or see unless they update their iOS.

All emoji images are packed as a font, named AppleColorEmoji (and .AppleColorEmojiUI in iOS 10+). In other words, an emoji font is crucial in order to display emojis correctly. The font gets updated to include new emojis, of course.

EmojiPort replaces the original emoji list with the up-to-date one. For this, EmojiPort also requires an up-to-date font that contains all emoji images needed. Without the new font installed, users are going to see "blank" emojis - in other words, new emojis won't show up.