Gboard Is Testing 3D Couple Emoji Combinations [APK Teardown]

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What to know
Gboard adds a dedicated 3D couple emoji flag
The finding is narrower than Google’s wider 3D emoji rollout
What happens next

What to know

Gboard is testing three-dimensional couple emoji combinations.
The new option could expand Emoji Kitchen with couples rendered in Google’s 3D style.
The code appears in the unreleased Gboard v18.5.1.993608717-beta-arm64-v8a build, but we could not surface the feature in the app.

Google’s broader rollout of Noto emojis in a 3D style is already public, including its expansion to the Pixel Watch. What is new here is more specific: Gboard now contains a flag explicitly dedicated to 3D couple emojis.

We found the flag after decompiling Gboard v18.5.1.993608717-beta-arm64-v8a and diffing its resources against the previous build. The wording points to Gboard preparing to render or offer couple combinations in Google’s 3D style, potentially extending the kinds of creations available through Emoji Kitchen.

About APK teardowns — An APK teardown works by reading the not-yet-shipped code inside a beta build, which lets us preview features a developer is working on before they’re announced. But work-in-progress code can change, stay hidden behind a server-side flag, or be scrapped before it ever reaches your phone.

Gboard adds a dedicated 3D couple emoji flag

The clearest evidence is a newly identified flag named enable_3d_couple_emojis. Its wording directly connects three separate elements: Gboard can enable the capability, it applies specifically to couple emojis, and it uses a 3D treatment.

The build also contains text for available Emoji Kitchen stickers and for choosing another option to create a new emoji. Those broader strings describe Gboard’s existing emoji-creation interface, although the resources do not spell out exactly where the 3D couple option will appear within it.

The new strings, seen below, point to the dedicated flag alongside the relevant emoji-creation language:

enable_3d_couple_emojis = “enable_3d_couple_emojis”

APKTOOL_RENAMED_0x7f140078 = “Emoji Kitchen stickers available”

APKTOOL_RENAMED_0x7f14083c = “Try a different option to create a new emoji”

The finding is narrower than Google’s wider 3D emoji rollout

Google’s general move toward three-dimensional Noto emoji designs is not new. This teardown instead reveals a potentially new sub-capability inside Gboard: couple emojis specifically being rendered or offered in that 3D style.

The flag does not disclose which couples or combinations are covered, how users will select them, or whether the resulting designs will behave differently from other Emoji Kitchen stickers. It also provides no information about supported devices, regions, or a release schedule.

We could not surface the feature in the app, so the finding remains limited to dormant strings in the beta build rather than an on-device view of the interface.

What happens next

Gboard’s 3D couple emoji feature is not available to users yet, and we’ll watch future builds for signs of a wider rollout.