What you need to know
- Xiaomi has blatantly ripped off Apple's Memoji and created "Mimoji."
- They look just liked Apple's cutesy 3D avatars with big eyes and tiny mouths.
- And to boot, they offer similar customization of hairstylings, glasses and more.
It's no secret that Xiaomi has taken some liberties with taking inspiration from Apple's ideas, but its latest inspiration seems more like highway robbery than anything else (via Engadget). Alongside its new CC9 phone series, Xiaomi is introducing new cutesy avatars called "Mimoji" that are a blatant rip-off of Apple's Memoji.
If the name isn't a dead giveaway, then the design of the Mimoji make it perfectly clear this Xiaomi basically copied and pasted Apple's avatars with only a few minor differences. The Mimoji avatars offer the same big-eyed and customizable avatars just like Apple's version down to the same hair stylings and facial structures. About the only difference is new customizable stylings such as hats and hair colors.
Apple first introduced Memoji with the iPhone X in 2017 that used the phone's True Depth camera to create these cutesy 3D avatars that truly resembled their owners. But starting with Samsung's AR Emoji, other companies were jumping on the bandwagon of borrowing the idea to create their own implementation.
Xiaomi is only the latest company to do so, though it is the most blatant rip-off yet.
There's not much Apple can do about it other than improve its own version, which is exactly what it is doing in iOS 13. The software update is adding more granular customization to Memoji that can even add AirPods to your avatar.
We won't be surprised if Xiaomi soon adds its AirPods rip-off AirDots to its Memoji rip-off as well. It's the nature of the beast.
Samsung's AR Emoji are better than Animoji in every way but the one that matters
