💬 The Wrap
Happy Halloween to those who celebrate! 🎃👻
Last month Unicode officially approved Emoji 16.0, recommending eight new emojis for our emoji keyboards. These recommendations came alongside Unicode 16.0, which added a total of 5,185 additional characters to the Unicode Standard, including seven new scripts. 🆕📑
Only one vendor has previewed their designs for Emoji 16.0 so far: on the same day that Unicode formally made its recommendation, Google provided support for the eight new emojis via the downloadable fonts for their Noto Color Emoji and Noto Emoji design sets. The Noto Color Emoji update also tweaked the shading and outlines for most gesture emoji designs. 🔡🎨
However, Emoji 16.0 will not be supported directly within Android devices until March 2025. It is currently unknown if the designs will appear within other Google platforms such as Chrome OS, Gmail, or YouTube before their official release on Android, though they have done so in the past. ⏲️🆙
Last week Apple released its first developer beta for its upcoming iOS 18.2 update. This beta update contained the much-anticipated new Apple Intelligence Image Playground feature set, including the AI-generated “Genmoji” sticker creation tool. However, accessing the feature requires approval via a growing waitlist of eager beta testers - with access being granted more slowly than that of iOS 18.1’s Apple Intelligence waitlist. 🍏😺
Upon the launch of iOS 18.2 beta 1, we here at Emojipedia provided a hands-on overview of the Genmoji feature as it currently stands, though it is subject to change between now and its official release. iOS 18.2 has been confirmed to be planned for a December 2024 release, though those in the European Union and China will have to wait before they can access any Apple Intelligence features. Additionally, the feature set can only be accessed on iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices. 🌐📲
Rounding out this edition of the Emoji Wrap is an overview of Samsung concluding the large-scale emoji redesign project it began this month last year with One UI 6.1.1, a discussion of the controversial emoji design divergence implemented by X/Twitter in recent months, a possible award for Gboard’s ability to swiftly toggle between all emoji skin tone and gender options, and a throwback article discussing the most popular emojis used to celebrate the spooky season. 👻🌯
✨ New Emojis
😺 Hands-On With Apple's Genmoji AI Emoji Generator in Beta
Apple’s Genmoji, available now via the first iOS 18.2 developer beta, allows users to generate AI-powered, emoji-like stickers by entering descriptions directly into their emoji keyboards.
However, the feature currently has a considerable waitlist and is only available on eligible devices within select countries. Nevertheless, we provide a hands-on description of how the feature operates here.
We also discuss the technical differences between these new Genmoji sticker images and the Unicode-based emojis within our standard emoji keyboards, and how this distinction will be obscured for Apple users thanks to the new NSAdaptiveImageGlyph API.
📑 What's New In Unicode 16.0
Last month Unicode 16.0 introduced eight new emojis, including a harp, a shovel, a splatter symbol, and a face with bags under its eyes.
The update also added over 5,000 additional Unicode characters, including Egyptian hieroglyphs and symbols from legacy computer systems.
🔡 Google Debuts Its Emoji 16.0 Support
Immediately following the release of Emoji 16.0, Google announced that its Noto Color Emoji and Noto Emoji font files had been updated to provide support for the eight latest emojis.
While not expected on Android devices until March 2025, these fonts can be downloaded now via their respective Google Fonts pages.
📰 News
🏴 Samsung Expands Rollout of One UI 6.1.1
In recent years Samsung has been uncharacteristically quick to implement support for Unicode’s latest emoji recommendations, but this has yet to be the case in 2024. Samsung’s most recent emoji update came with One UI 6.1.1, which received a broad rollout in September following its July 2024 release.
The update revised the designs of every 🎌 Flag emoji and various emojis from the 💡 Objects and 💕 Symbols categories, continuing the large-scale Samsung emoji redesign project that began last October with the release of One UI 6.0.
🔫 X Redesigns Water Pistol Emoji Back To A Firearm
Earlier this year, X (formerly Twitter) updated its 🔫 Water Pistol emoji to depict a firearm, reversing a 2016-2018 cross-platform shift from gun to water pistol across vendors.
Then they revised the design again to a different type of firearm, and later still began rolling out this update beyond the X web client to Apple devices. We discuss how these changes came about here, as well as within this Fast Company article which we were interviewed for.
💭 Interesting
🏆 Gboard's Emoji Skin Tone & Gender Toggle Nominated in Anthem Awards
Gboard’s ability to swiftly toggle between all emoji skin tone and gender options has been recognized by the Anthem Awards - an awards event oriented around social impact created by The Webby Awards in 2021.
The award the feature is nominated for is based on public votes, which can be submitted here. Voting is open until 11:59 pm PT tonight (Thursday, October 31st).
🎃 Spooky Emojis Are Trending (2021)
Given the date, we thought it would be appropriate to close this edition of the Emoji Wrap by sharing this article by our Editor in Chief (then Deputy Emoji Officer) from 2021 on which emojis have historically experienced the most viral surge in usage during the Halloween season.
🤗 Lastly
That does it for our Halloween 2024 edition of the Emoji Wrap! 🎃🌯
For all the latest emoji news and analysis you can follow Emojipedia on Twitter/X, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Emojipedia and the Emoji Wrap are brought to you by Zedge, the world's #1 phone personalization app.