Submitted by Fred Straker on
Star Trek fans now have another reason to upgrade their iOS devices to 8.3. Apple supports the Vulcan salute emoji, which means the popular symbol can be typed and viewed in iOS apps and on OS X computers. A large collection of new emoji was released with iOS 8.3, however the Vulcan salute remains an Easter egg.
The Vulcan salute was developed by Leonard Nimoy during his portrayal of Spock on the original Star Trek series. As any Trekkie knows, the gesture is often accompanied by the words "Live long and prosper". The trick to enabling the Vulcan salute requires following the steps below:
1. First update your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to iOS 8.3
2. View this page on your iOS device
3. Copy the Vulcan salute emoji appearing on the next line:🖖
Newest iPhone FAQs
(older versions of iOS will not display the Vulcan salute above)
4. Navigate to Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> + (plus button in upper right)
5. Paste the Vulcan salute emoji into the Phrase field
6. Enter text in the Shortcut field, such as llap
7. Tap Save
That's it! To use the Vulcan salute, type the shortcut text (llap in the example above) and iOS will automatically replace it with the emoji. The Vulcan salute can be added anywhere other emojis can be used.
The Vulcan salute was added to version 7 of the Unicode standard in June 2014, with the title "Raised hand with part between middle and ring fingers". OS X 10.10.3 or later is required to see the Vulcan salute emoji. Thanks goes to AppleInsider for tweeting about the Vulcan salute.