iOS 9.1’s mysterious eye emoji riddle solved: Apple adds emoji to support ‘I Am A Witness’ bullying campaign

The character, previously described only as ‘eye-in-speech-bubble’, has finally been decoded

The campaign's logo, created by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (Goodby, Silverstein & Partners)

The mystery of a strange emoji that appeared in Apple’s keyboard has finally been solved.

The little character — of an eye in a speech bubble — has been added to the keyboard to support an anti-bullying campaign.

The character was added in iOS 9.1, which some people had access to early versions of last month, and neither Apple nor anyone else would explain why it had got there. But the full version of iOS 9.1 was released today — and asking Siri to describe the emoji aloud reveals that it is an “eye in speech bubble representing anti-bullying campaign”.

That campaign is called “I Am A Witness” and was also just launched, alongside the full version of iOS 9.1. It is intended to encourage people to report bullying and help address it.

The drive was created by the Ad Council, a US organisation that creates public service campaigns. The group said that the character was created to spur young people into reporting

“It’s a powerful symbol,” Hanna Wittmark, one of the people that created the campaign, told Wired. “It says ‘I see this, and I’m speaking up. I’m doing something about it.'”

When the emoji first appeared, nobody had any idea why it had got there.

As expert and Emojipedia founder Jeremy Burge noted when it emerged, “the strange thing about this character (which Apple calls “eye in speech bubble”) is that it’s not a standard Unicode addition”. Unicode is the industry standard for such pictorial characters, and Apple tends to implement emoji only after they have been agreed by a consortium.

Mr Burge pointed out that the picture appeared to have been formed out of two already-approved emoji — the eye and the “left speech bubble”. But nobody was clear why it had been put there.

Apple isn’t the only company aligning itself with the campaign. Adobe, Facebook, Snapchat, Tumblr, Twitter, Whisper, Kik, and Google have also signed up to support it, according to Wired.