New emoji characters coming to Apple devices

WEB DESK: Apple is preparing to add seven new emoji to its devices, including iPhones, iPads, and Macs. These additions follow the updates made by the Unicode Consortium, which recently entered the beta review period for Unicode 16.

The new emoji under consideration are a face with bags under eyes, a fingerprint, a leafless tree, a root vegetable, a harp, a shovel, and a splatter.

The Unicode Consortium, responsible for standardising emoji across platforms, opened the beta review period for Unicode 16 today. This review period will last until July 2, after which the new emoji will be officially approved.

Following the approval, it typically takes several months for smartphone manufacturers like Apple to design and implement the new emoji into their systems. As a result, these new characters are expected to appear on Apple devices sometime after the release of iOS 18, likely around March 2025, coinciding with the anticipated iOS 18.4 update.

Apple’s most recent emoji update came with iOS 17.4, released in March 2024. This update introduced several new characters, including a lime, an edible brown mushroom, a phoenix, a broken chain, a nodding head indicating “yes,” and a shaking head indicating “no.”

With the upcoming release of Unicode 16, users can look forward to a refreshed set of emoji, enhancing digital communication with more diverse and expressive options.

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