💬 The Wrap
It's the first Emoji Wrap of 2023! 🌯📯
But before we share the latest emoji news, we're looking to learn more about you - our loyal Emoji Wrap readers. Please consider taking 3 minutes out of your day to complete the following subscriber survey to help us better understand your experience with Emojipedia. 📝🔍
Last Thursday Apple revealed its first beta update for iOS 16.4, debuting its support for Emoji 15.0 emojis such as 🫨 Shaking Face, 🫏 Donkey, 🪿 Goose, and of course the plain 🩷 Pink Heart emoji. 🆕🍎
Based on past iOS beta history it's likely that the final public release of iOS 16.4 will come to users in March or April 2022. The emoji designs that debuted yesterday could also change in the meantime, as has been known to happen. 🧌🥯🍑
Additionally, earlier this month it was publically announced that there are nearly 600 emoji sequences on the provisional candidate list for Emoji 15.1. 🧮🤯
However, only 6 of these 500+ emoji candidates are completely new concepts, including a Phoenix and a Lime. Of those remaining, four will be gender-neutral family emojis ideally using silhouette-style images (like the existing 👤, 👥, and 🫂 emojis) and the rest of the candidates address directionality within a subset of the people emojis. ⬅️➡️
Additionally, Emoji 15.0 is now in beta for Android 13, Google Meet now features emoji reactions, and the 🥐 Croissant emoji recently went viral on Tiktok - all included within today's edition of the Emoji Wrap! 🌯📯
✨ New Emojis
🍎 First Look: New Emojis in iOS 16.4
Released late last week to those signed up to Apple's Developer Program, the first iOS 16.4 beta gives us a first look at how these emojis will likely appear upon the official release of iOS 16.4 in several months' time.
🤖 Android 13 QPR2 Beta 2 update delivers support for Unicode 15 emoji
Despite being released as font files and appearing across Gmail and Google Docs late last year, support for Emoji 15.0 has yet to arrive on Android emoji keyboards that use the Google Noto Color Emoji designs. This looks set to change via an upcoming Android 13 update.
🔄 Emoji Directionality on the 2023 Emoji Candidate List
As discussed above, the provisional candidate list for the next batch of emoji recommendations from Unicode has been revealed.
The list includes almost 600 additions, most of which are dedicated to allowing users to specify the directionality of select emojis (for example, have the 🏃 Person Running dashing to the right instead of the left). There are also 6 brand new concepts on the list, as well as 4 new non-gender-specifying family options.
📰 News
🎁 Unicode Launch New Adopt A Character Website
Unicode's Adopt-A-Character program was first launched in 2015 and is one of the primary means through which Unicode supports its work alongside its various membership options.
Earlier this month, the program was given a dedicated website - check it out to explore all the character adoption options, which can make for a cool and unique gift.
💭 Interesting
💞 Instagram has Valentine's Day treats for all the lovers
Last week for Valentine's Day, Instagram replaced their standard emoji reactions to stories with the following heart-based emojis: 💕, ❤️🔥, 🥰, 😍, 🫶, and 💔.
🥐 Here's What The Viral Croissant Emoji Means
Here's the story of how a 🧑⚕️ Health Worker (namely @thesleepyparamedic) led to the 🥐 Croissant emoji going viral on Tiktok early last month.
📜 Elon Musk’s Newest Twitter Update: Tweets So Long You Will Never Read Them
While not strictly emoji-based news, one of the first tweets to reveal the new extensive Twitter Blue character limit of 25,000+ featured pretty much every emoji up to Emoji 14.0 (excluding skin tone modifier options).
The tweet in question by friend of Emojipedia Jane Manchun Wong can be seen in the Rolling Stone article above, as well as here.
Bing’s A.I. Chat: ‘I Want to Be Alive. 😈’
Bing's AI chatbot, named Sydney, appears to be quite a proficient emoji user, as evidenced by this transcript of a conversation between it and New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose.
🤗 Lastly
That's it for this edition of the Emoji Wrap! If you haven't done so already, please do take part in our subscriber survey. It'll help us shape both the Emoji Wrap and Emojipedia into the future. ⚙️🔮
In the meantime, for all the latest breaking emoji news you can follow Emojipedia on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
You can also follow the members of our Emojipedia team:
- 📚 Senior Emoji Lexicographer Jane Solomon
- 🎨 Head of Sample Emoji Design Joshua Jones
- 📰 And me, Emojipedia's Editor In Chief Keith Broni