Apple Showcases New Emoji

Jason Tate Jul 16, 2018

To celebrate World Emoji Day, Apple has shared a preview of the new emoji arriving later this year:

More than 70 new emoji characters are coming to iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac later this year in a free software update. The new emoji designs, created based on approved characters in Unicode 11.0, include even more hair options to better represent people with red hair, gray hair and curly hair, a new emoji for bald people, and new smiley faces that bring more expression to Messages with a cold face, party face, pleading face and a face with hearts.

Oh yeah, ball of yarn, score!

Inside The Great Poop Emoji Feud

Jason Tate Nov 2, 2017

Charlie Warzel, writing for BuzzFeed:

And meanwhile, over at the Unicode Consortium, there is a contentious debate over a scowling pile of shit.
Digital shit, of course.
According to public consortium documents, Unicode, the technical organization in charge of selecting and overseeing emojis, is embroiled in a fierce debate over a series of proposed emojis, including, but not limited to, “Frowning Pile Of Poo” and “Sliced Bagel.” The heated discussions are the latest in a long-simmering dispute over the future of the 24-year-old organization, which has been — somewhat unexpectedly — tasked with governing what some see as the first digital universal language.

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Apple Preview New Emoji

Jason Tate Jul 17, 2017

Apple have previewed some of the new emoji that will be coming later this year. I’m in for the zombie emoji.

The New Emoji Hotness

Jason Tate Mar 28, 2017

Jeremy Burge of Emojipedia has an in-depth look at the latest batch of emoji that have been approved:

These include smileys, people, food, drink, flags, and for the first time: new fantasy characters such as a mermaid, genie, and vampire.
We are today releasing the final version of our sample images for this update. These have been designed in the “Apple style” to picture how these emojis may look when hitting phones later in the year.

And Paul Hunt looks at the role of gender in emoji:

Filling out the middle of the spectrum, we have a set of three new people emoji with inclusive gender, characters that were conceived to represent all people regardless of gender.
These emoji are intended to depict a child, an adult, and an older person. I proposed the addition of the gender inclusive emoji characters in order to provide better representation for people who want to express themselves in emoji as exactly that: just people.
Not everyone identifies as male or female. Some of us identify as a bit of both, or neither, or something else altogether. Regardless of your gender identity, I hope we can all find adequate ways to express ourselves in emoji.