Better than what? Many of the other alternatives didn't have quite the same "iOS style" friendliness (a lot haven't had a whole lot of work done to them of late), and didn't submit as a unicode character (designed to append a PNG or SVG to the textarea). Also design-wise our customers preferred a large image layout on desktop, because it's a lot easier to click than small icons (say 16x16).
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How is it better? I still can't wrap my head around its improved functionality?
Better than what? Many of the other alternatives didn't have quite the same "iOS style" friendliness (a lot haven't had a whole lot of work done to them of late), and didn't submit as a unicode character (designed to append a PNG or SVG to the textarea). Also design-wise our customers preferred a large image layout on desktop, because it's a lot easier to click than small icons (say 16x16).