I've been running Android 4.4 on my Galaxy S4 active for years and recently realized that I've never had access to emojis on my phone. I never really cared too much for them, but I don't like the idea of not having access to something that's so commonplace nowadays so I decided to look up how to get them on my phone.
I did some research and it seemed like it would be a simple installation of "Emoji for English words" under the add-on dictionaries in the Google Keyboard settings. Well, even after refreshing the add-on dictionaries page the emojis never appeared, and a google search for my issue results in nothing really fruitful.
Granted, when I'm using google keyboard I can hold the enter/return key and I'll get a very basic list of emojis but it's limited to stuff like :-) and :-$. About 15 of those face emojis and 24 other basic symbols. That's it. No hot fire emoji, cry laughing emoji, nor the underlined 100 emoji. I need these to be hip with the kids.
I like using google keyboard but the lack of emojis is really starting to annoying me into wanting to use anything else. If anyone's got any ideas or suggestions on a fix, or even a suggestion for another great keyboard app that does have emoji support, I'd be eternally grateful.