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The Animoji app Apple should have made is now available for download

Published Nov 7th, 2017 11:31PM EST
iPhone X Animoji
Image: Apple Inc.

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Animoji are great. Animoji are amazing. However, to use them you need two things: an iPhone X, and the iMessage app. That’s right — there’s no way to play with Animoji unless you do it inside the default iPhone messaging app, as Apple did not make a standalone Animoji app for it.

However, a developer created the standalone Animoji app you want right now. The good news is that it’s already available for download and you can install it on your iPhone X right away. The bad news is that it’s not the App Store download you’re used to.

Using private APIs that aren’t available to developers, which means Apple will never approve the app, developer Simon B. Støvring came up with an Animoji app that lets you record Animoji videos of up to 20 seconds, and it all happens outside of iMessage.

The application is called SBSAnimoji and can be downloaded right now from Github. Yes, this isn’t your regular App Store download because Apple would surely ban SBSAnimoji from the App Store. And considering there’s no jailbreak for the iPhone X right now, there’s no other way to install the standalone Animoji app on the iPhone X right now.

As 9to5Mac explains, you’ll have to register a free Apple developer account so that you can sideload the SBSAnimoji app. If that’s something you want to do, then check out this post for a step-by-step tutorial.

Once everything is set up, you can create your own Animoji karaoke or Animoji movies videos.

Chris Smith Senior Writer

Chris Smith has been covering consumer electronics ever since the iPhone revolutionized the industry in 2008. When he’s not writing about the most recent tech news for BGR, he brings his entertainment expertise to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and other blockbuster franchises.

Outside of work, you’ll catch him streaming almost every new movie and TV show release as soon as it's available.