Download & Install iOS 9.1 Emoji On Jailbroken iOS 9 – 9.0.2

Ever since Apple rolled out iOS 9, there have been complaints of reduced battery life while those on older devices have even reported significant drops in performance. iOS 9.0.1 and its 9.0.2 followup didn’t quell the iteration’s speed and battery woes, which had everyone yearning for the first major update to the latest version of Apple’s mobile OS. iOS 9.1 was released last week, and reports from all around the web suggest it does indeed improve performance and battery life, but that’s not all. If you’ve been following its beta releases, you probably already know it comes with over 150 additional emoji, including a unicorn, and for those of you tired of using underscores and vertical bars to flip someone off, the middle finger – that’s right.

Unfortunately, the update also plugs the vulnerabilities used by the Pangu 9 jailbreak tool for iOS 9 – 9.0.2, which means you won’t be able to jailbreak your device if you update to iOS 9.1. As expected, the Cydia store already offers a way to get the new emoji on older, jailbroken versions of the OS.

The solution, which comes in the form of a tweak from PoomSmart, doesn’t include all of the new emoji, but you do get most of them, including the coveted middle finger. The current version of the package also fails to display new emoji within certain apps, Messages being one of them, unfortunately. Hopefully, the developer will fix these issues and add the remaining emoji in future updates.

If your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch is on iOS 9 – 9.0.2, and you’re looking to jailbreak, check out our iOS 9 jailbreak guide. If you’re already jailbroken, here’s what you need to do to get your hands on those sweet new emoji.

1. Launch Cydia and switch to the Sources tab.

2. Tap Edit followed by Add, enter the following: “poomsmart.github.io/repo/” and hit Add Source to add PoomSmart’s repository.

3. Switch to the Search tab, enter “Emoji83” and install the Emoji83+ tweak that appears in the search results. Tap Restart SpringBoard.

4. Now, to be able to see the installed emoji within the keyboard, launch Cydia again and search for “Emoji iOS 9.1”. Install the Emoji iOS 9.1 Backup (D) BytaFont 2 package.

Note: The package, along with BytaFont 2 and AppList, amounts to 63.3 MB (as of this writing) and will take some time to download.

5. Once it is done installing, tap Return to Cydia, then return to the Home screen and launch the BytaFont 2 app.

6. Switch to the Swap Mode tab, select Emoji > Emoji_iOS 9.1 and hit Yes.

The app will then automatically restart the SpringBoard, following which you will be able to see the new emoji within the keyboard.

Update: A newer tweak by developer Hamza Sood called Emoji9 (in beta as of this writing) enables emoji from iOS 9.1+ on older versions of the OS without any apparent issues, unlike the aforementioned Emoji83+ tweak. To use Emoji9, simply install it in place of Emoji83+ in the procedure detailed above.

If you liked this post, don’t forget to check out our Cydia tweaks section for similar coverage.