💬 The Wrap
Emoji updates are getting much quicker from approval to device! The Emoji 5.0 specification was finalized this month, with the emojis included frozen back in March. Previously, this might have taken vendors 6-24 months to support. Yet we've already seen Twitter and Google support the additions in the same month this time around.
Some other news you might have missed: the deadline for emoji submissions has moved. This was previously in October, but is July 1 this year. That means any emoji that needs a new code point must be submitted by July 1 in order to make the cut for 2018.
WWDC is next week and I'm holding tight to see if Apple includes new emojis in the first iOS 11 developer preview. In past years we've not seen a peep from Apple on their new emoji designs until much later in the year. We'll see if it's any different this year. Be sure to follow Emojipedia on Twitter for any updates on that front.
📰 News
✅ Curly hair, white hair, bald and redhead emojis approved as candidates
Results from the most recent UTC meeting: redheads, curly hair, white hair and bald emojis are now candidates for 2018. Planets didn't make the cut, but some science emojis like a lab coat and test tube did. Here's what was being discussed leading up to the meeting.
⚰️ RIP Blobs: Google Redesigns Emojis
The big emoji news from Google this month was the announcement of Android "O" which drops the last of the blobs in the latest beta. The latest set is completely redesigned, and supports the latest Emoji 5.0 updates. Here's what's new.
💬 Twitter adds 69 new emojis including a UFO, a steak and a zebra
Twitter uses a custom emoji set (called Twemoji) when viewed on the web, or in TweetDeck. This open source set just got updated with all the latest from Emoji 5.0. While Google announced Android O support first in the beta; this is live for all Twitter.com users.
💭 Interesting
👩🎨 Google’s 18-Month Quest To Redesign Its Terrible Emoji
Headline aside, this chat with Rachel Been and Gus Fonts from Google offers some interesting insights into what went into the recent Android emoji update. I enjoyed this part about the mind blown emoji which reflected my own chat with Emojipedia designer Joshua Jones about our image for this emoji: "What does a blown mind really look like? Is it a nuclear bomb drop? Or something closer to a firecracker?"
👯 "It was time for a change." — Google
Lastly on Google's emoji update, this article comes from the team planning and designing the new emoji changes. In something users have said they want for a long time: "We also spent a long, long time making sure that we addressed cross-platform emotional consistency"
📈 Emoji Trends Are Here
A little addition we made to Emojipedia recently: Google Trends integration. Interest in the 💁 Sassy girl peaked a few years ago, but this 🐶 pup seems to be at an all-time high. It's on every emoji page now (scroll down!)
🎬 The Emoji Movie trailer
Emojis are hitting the big league with this movie from Sony. I'm a little surprised it took someone this long to make a movie ab out emojis given no one owns the concept of "emoji" in the abstract. I prefer to watch a movie than judge based on the trailer, so I'll report back after I've seen it!
🤷🏻 An Adventure Through Chrome’s Wildly-Varying Emoji Support
File under: emoji parsing is hard. This well illustrated article shows some of the common issues that you can run into when trying to find out more about any particular emoji.
📲 "EmojiCompat" allows Android apps to use latest emojis
I didn't get a chance to cover this in much detail, but in this could be a solution to the Android Emoji problem — whereby the majority of Android users aren't currently running an OS that can see the latest emoji additions.
😶 Samsung’s Bizarre Emojis
Samsung continually puzzles me with some of their emoji choices. Some I can make sense of, others feel like Samsung's designers haven't done a sneaky check on Emojipedia to see what everyone else is doing!
🎙 Podcasts
❓ Why is there no hijab emoji?
Justin Bai looks at issues of emoji diversity. As always, there's more to it than meets the eye. And since the time of publishing, two platforms do now support the hijab emoji with more to come.
🔣 Unicode
📥 Unicode Emoji submission deadline now July 1
Unicode 10 comes out in June, but Android O is already in beta, and iOS 11 will hit beta next week. The new Unicode schedule should give vendors a bit more time between Unicode release and major OS updates for the year.
🤗 Lastly
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For those who have just signed up: welcome! I won't be at WWDC this year, and also missed Google I/O but to those of you who tracked me down at TNW Europe, thank you!
Come find me on Twitter if you don't mind a mix of tweets about Unicode and general nerdery mixed in with urban planning and cafe updates. Or stick to Emoji Wrap on Twitter for the best emoji bits.
See you next month. Whisper has it we might even have a new podcast episode in the works.