💬 The Wrap
The big news this week has been Apple's proposal for 13 new emojis representing people with disabilities. Options include a guide dog, mechanical and manual wheelchairs, the 'deaf sign' in ASL, and prosthetic limbs.
The majority of feedback I've seen on this proposal has been positive: both from those with disabilities and those without. A subset of people noted that while they have a disability they don't want to be reminded and/or don't want people using these emojis to mock them. As always, it's hard for a single proposal to please everyone.
There's also the people saying this is "PC gone mad" or words to that effect, but that seems par for the course in many attempts at inclusivity in this world.
As for constructive criticism: a number of people have pointed to the lack of mobility scooter, walking stick, crutches, and/or symbols for hidden disabilities and mental health. I'm not so sure that abstract symbols are a workable option for hidden disabilities, unless there are widely recognized depictions already.
The Unicode Technical Committee meets next month at Adobe HQ in San Jose to discuss this proposal and more. I'll report back with what is decided.
📰 News
♿️ Apple Proposes New Accessibility Emojis
Apple has proposed new emojis for people with disabilities. Here's all the details.
✅ Samsung Experience 9.0 Emoji Changelog
At last, the most problematic Samsung emojis are...less problematic. Especially that eye roll.
📚 Dictionary.com Has Officially Added Emoji
It's about time one of the dictionary companies joined us in the 21st century 😉 😈
💭 Interesting
👩🔬 We Asked These Personality Scientists To Analyze Our Slack Emojis
“Anjali’s mentor personality type suggests she does well in fast-paced environments, which aligns with her frequent use of the lightning bolt and rocket emojis.”
👩⚖️ Does a punch emoji imply intent? Experts say courts need to hire 'digital experts'
Related: a police force recently asked for our help in investigating a crime. I won't say which one, but there's a lot going on in this space.
🤔 There’s no App Store ’emoji apocalypse,’ just inconsistent policy enforcement
Last issue we looked at Apple cracking down on developers including emojis in their iOS apps. Apple says nothing has changed. While we're relying on anecdotal evidence it is hard to tell with certainty what's going on.
💃🏼 2018: The Year of Emoji Convergence?
Wherein I take a look at how the major platform's emoji designs have changed over the years, getting closer to one another.
📰 Evening Standard redesign: Weather ‘poo’ emojis
I can't see how a 💩 is any clearer to read for bad weather than ☔️ or 🌧 but who looks at the weather in print in 2018 anyway?
😂 Have We Reached Peak Tears of Joy?
It's hard to come up with a single source of truth for emoji stats. However using Emojipedia's own internal data, it looks as though 😂 Face With Tears of Joy is dropping in use. And 🤣 ROFL is only going some way to making up for it.
👎 2018 emoji to include new food items, anatomically inaccurate lobster
I did find the references to Emojipedia's "anatomically inaccurate" lobster to be somewhat amusing, to be honest.
👍 It doesn’t matter how many legs the new lobster emoji has
The truth of the matter lies somewhere in the middle of the hot takes on the lobster. Emojis should first and foremost convey an idea successfully. But if they can also do that while being correct, that doesn't hurt and could be a bonus for our collective awareness.
🙋♀️ Top Emoji Requests 2018
TL;DR: White heart, black families, a flamingo! Related: I chatted about this briefly on Cheddar this week.
❌ EmojiCompat For Android A Work In Progress
EmojiCompat had a promising pitch: no more missing characters on old Android releases. The reality so far has fallen short of the mark.
👫 The Interracial Couple Emoji Project
Unicode has long recommended that two-person emojis avoid skin tone options. This is primarily to avoid segregating, for instance, a couple 👬👭 from having only the same skin tone as options. If options are added for interracial couples, the next logical question would be why not families too.
❤️ 2018’s new emoji will end the neglect of redheads
Redheads are still topping the most requests Emojipedia gets, so hopefully the release of Emoji 11.0 helps the situation.
🎬 Ranger & Fox + Emoji Manifesto
A cool 3D animated video showing off emojis in various situations. I can't actually tell what the firm behind it does (their about page calls the company "noble protectors and caretakers") so my best guess is advertising / consulting / something like that. If only they could communicate what their actual business is.
🎙 Podcasts
🎙 Connected
I joined the hosts of Connected last month to talk about Apple's emoji crackdown. It's a little out of date now, but possibly still worth a listen if you're affected by this.
🎙 Accidental Tech Podcast
The Accidental Tech Podcast covering Apple's decision to seemingly crack down on emoji use in app.s
🎙 Emoji Wrap: Emoji in the Dictionary with Jane Solomon
The latest episode of the podcast by the same name as this email! Wherein I discuss a few select articles in this newsletter with Dictionary.com lexicographer Jane Solomon.
🤗 Lastly
I only found out when speaking to Jane Solomon for this month's podcast that there is no "Easter Long Weekend" break for those in the US. Having lived in both Australia and the UK I had been under the wrong impression that having a four day weekend at this time of year was normal.
For those with time off, please enjoy! And for those still at work, well, you can pretend these emoji articles are for legitimate work purposes I am sure.