We’ve just received word that we’re a half hour away from having an additional fruit, banana, added to the Xat fruit power.

Most people already know that the Xat fruit power allows a user to add varying fruit characteristics to any yellow Xat smiley. Typically, users without the power are still able to use the fruit smilies to adorn their nicks within the chat. This time around Xat has made one small change with respect to that; only those users who have the fruit power will be able to use even the fruit smilies. At the moment we’re still waiting to get visual confirmation, so we can’t be sure if it will affect all fruit smilies or just the new “banana”. We’ll have to wait and see!

Look for those changes in the next 20 – 30 minutes!

Update: Banana is out, and we can confirm that you do in fact need the fruit power to use any of the fruit smilies.

We’ve just got word that the new Xat fruit power has just been released! Per Xat,

***PRICE WILL INCREASE OVER TIME AND THEN BECOME UNAVAILABLE*** Give a fruity background to any “yellow” smilie. Eg (smile#fruit) (d#apple) (yum#pear) (eek#orange) (wink#plum) (hello#lemon). Works with () smilies only.

The current cost is 200 xats and, according to Xat, this power WILL increase in price and become unavailable at some point.

Get your Xat fruit power NOW!

Xat seems to be working on a new power that will allow a user to turn any yellow smiley into one of various “fruit shapes”.

A few users over at our Spanish Xat resource site were quick to point this new power out to us here and here. From the Xat smileys list, right now we’re seeing the following:

You’ll see that there’s is already a new placeholder for a power called “fruit”. In addition, Xat has created LEMON (see icon), and several more placeholders including APPLE, PEAR, ORANGE, and PLUM.

If we come across any new detail, we’ll let you know!