I've spent a lot of time recently getting used to iOS 15. If you read my iOS 15 beta review, you will see that I generally like what I see. Still, even with improvements to Maps and FaceTime and the addition of valuable features like Focus, iOS 15 still has one or two shortcomings that I struggle with.

I'm still getting used to the new look of Safari, and some features like AR-based directions and Live Text may need tweaking before the full release of iOS 15 this fall. But what I dislike most about iOS 15 is not a feature of iOS 15 at all. Rather, it is the changes from previous versions of Apple's iPhone software that seem more pronounced in iOS 15.

For a while, Apple has included emoji among the predictive text options that appear as time-saving shortcuts when you are tapping a text message. on my iPhone SE, which is still running iOS 14, there are no emoji in the predictive text suggestions. My wife also does not see them on her iPhone XR with iOS 14.

But on the device I upgraded to iOS 15, I really noticed it. If I am typing a word and there is an emoji that is even remotely related to it, the predictive input feature in iOS 15 will definitely tell me about it. If I start a text to my wife with "hey," I have the option to tap the hand that pops up in the suggestion bar. When I suggest ordering pizza for dinner, the slice emoji is among the suggestions. If you want to text someone that you're tired of the dog, you'll be able to select the dog emoji before tapping the second syllable. [In iOS 15, emojis are more prominent in apps like Messages and even in third-party apps like the Twitter app. So what is the problem?

The problem is that I hate emojis.

I have never used emojis in my life. I find emojis childish and fatuous. More importantly, emojis get in the way of clear communication.

Even on cell phones with large screens, emojis appear very small and are difficult to interpret. When someone sends me a message full of emojis, I stare at them for an unacceptable amount of time, as if I am being forced to solve a Rivas puzzle, trying to decipher a string of indecipherable symbols.

If only we could use a combination of clearly defined letters instead of images to express exactly what we are trying to convey. Let's call it "language."

My iPhone's emoji keyboard has pages and pages of symbols and squiggles. - With each major iOS update, there are even more emojis. Just this month, Emoji 14.0 arrived, promising that even more emojis will be on your phone in the coming year.

I accept that I am on the losing side of history here, preferring to live as if the rest of the world were emoji mad and we were back in Lascaux painting livestock on cave walls. It makes sense that Apple would adjust its phone software to satisfy society's desire to clutter messages, texts, and tweets with dumb pictures. But why not give those of us who prefer an emoji-free lifestyle an easy way to turn off this feature?

Because I like text predictive suggestions. Especially when typing long words on the on-screen keyboard, it saves me time to type a couple of letters and then tap on the whole word to complete my thought. Also, as my editor will attest, I'm not going to win a spelling bee anytime soon, and predictive text helps me remember how long, complex words are actually spelled. It would be a waste of space to cede that valuable territory to emojis.

However, after scouring the keyboard section of the Settings app, it appears that there is no way to exclude emoji from predictive text suggestions unless one adopts the nuclear option. Either turn off predictive text altogether or remove the emoji keyboard altogether. These seem to be the only two ways to keep emoji from showing up when you want to send a message.

Personally, I would be fine with eliminating the emoji keyboard. However, I am thinking of people who want to use emoji in some apps but not in others. Shouldn't such people have the option to more accurately determine what predictive texting suggests? When texting friends and family, they may want access to lots of emoji suggestions, but when composing a message to a more professional recipient, they may want the predictive text suggestions to be a bit more subdued.

If this is my biggest complaint about the iOS update, I'll be the first to admit that Apple is cleaning things up pretty well. Still, we live in an age where customization and personalization are the norm. It looks like Apple could apply some of that to predictive text settings as well.