Apple will be adding QuickPath Typing to iMessages when iOS 13 launches this fall and Microsoft's SwiftKey messaging app is offering a new Animoji-like feature called Puppets. The Puppets feature doesn't require a user's smartphone to be equipped with a 3D depth camera like Apple's Animoji does with TrueDepth in order to deliver the same kind of Animoji-like capabilities as presented in the video below.  

The Puppet branding is interesting because as we noted in a 2018 patent report, Apple technically called their Animoji "Emojicon Puppeting."  

The new SwiftKey feature is available in beta form today at on Google Play for Android phones.   

Microsoft states that SwiftKey users can now appear as cute, animated animals when they message their friends. People can record themselves as a 3D panda, cat, dog, owl or dinosaur, and the popular app will use Microsoft’s artificial intelligence technology to mirror their head movements and facial expressions in real-time.

Deepak Paramanand, a Product Manager at Microsoft stated: "We wanted to give SwiftKey fans a fun way to communicate with their loved ones beyond pre-defined GIFs and so we created Puppets, a group of cute and furry friends that people can control just by being themselves. Choose one of five animals, record a message of less than 30 seconds and share it via one of the many popular communication apps supported by Android devices. It’s a fun way to stay in touch."

Microsoft took a quiet crack at Apple when they stated that "Unlike other animal emoji products that use 3D depth sensing, Puppets recognizes what a person’s face is doing," thanks to AI. They used deep neural network to learn how to identify each human expression, right down to a person using a blink as an expression.

Earlier today we posted a report titled "The Xiaomi-Memoji Controversy Deepens on two fronts with one being that Apple owns the Memoji Trademark in Hong Kong." Within 24 hours Microsoft and Xiaomi have introduced Animoji and Memoji equivalents for Android users.

Now that a new dimension is coming to FaceTime this fall, we can bet that Apple's competitors that have AI teams will be racing each other to see who will be first to copycat FaceTime's new feature for Android phones next year. It's a trend we can count on every year.

About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or negative behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus.