💬 The Wrap
UTC #149 was held earlier this month, which resulted in the acceptance of a giraffe, pretzel, vampire and these other new emojis for 2017.
Also approved at this meeting was Emoji 4.0 which was released this week. This includes emoji professions, gendered emojis, as well as the Rainbow Flag and United Nations Flag. Android and Twemoji both support the majority of these additions, as will the forthcoming iOS 10.2.
Speaking of which, iOS 10.2 is expected imminently, with a release likely in the next two weeks. This will bring Unicode 9 emojis such as the face palm and shrug, as well as emoji professions from Emoji 4.0.
Also, a happy St Andrew's Day to all the Scots out there! In addition to the other new additions, a Saltire emoji could be a very real possibility in 2017.
📰 News
🎮 Xbox One Gets Emoji Support In Latest Update
"Once on your virtual keyboard, you can get to emojis by pulling the left trigger until they show up. From there, select any emoji, or press and hold on one to see more related emoji."
🆕 Giraffe, Pretzel, Vampire Emojis for 2017
The latest emoji approvals from Unicode for version 10.0, to be released in June 2017.
💬 Google Allo helps you find the perfect emoji or sticker
A "smart smiley" button has been added to Allo.
🦊 Firefox includes Emoji One for Linux
Linux users to get color emoji on the web. Windows 8, too. Other platforms to continue showing their native emoji fonts.
🖌 Changes to Unicode Emoji Glyphs
Unicode approved changes to these glyphs which had fallen out of step with vendor designs, or were unclear. Pile of Poo to get eyes and a mouth in the chart image.
💭 Interesting
🎤 Kanye: "thank God for emojis"
"I don’t think people are going to talk in the future. They’re going to communicate through eye contact, body language, emojis, signs. Imagine that. If everyone was forced to learn sign language." — Kanye West
🚂 When emoji don’t face the way you want them to
"English has a writing system from left to right. We also tend to conceptualise time as moving from left to right. Even if we don’t say it in words, we’ll gesture events in that order, and even design logos to that effect"...so why not emojis?
🎬 Emoji music video
New York band Airplane Mode are showing off the latest emojis from Apple in their new emoji music video sponsored by Emojipedia.
🇫🇮 Finnish town considers 'Emoji Street' proposal
Emojipedia HQ should move to Emoji Street. Maybe you could join us, Unicode?
😂 The ‘tears of joy’ emoji is the worst of all
Abi Wilkinson copped a fair amount of heat on Twitter for this 'hot take' on the laughing-crying emoji. Spoiler: this article is about more than the emoji itself.
🗳 The top emojis of Election Day 2016
Top emojis associated with Donald Trump on election night: " 🤔, 👍, 👏, & 🖕 — represent both celebration as well as anger". An in-depth analysis from Hamdan Azhar.
📜 The History of Emoji
Shigetaku Kurita, the creator of the first emoji set, looks back at some of the early emoji decisions from 1999.
🇺🇸 Emojis that trended as the US Election results unfolded
The correlation to live events as the US election results came in were clear. Each step closer Donald Trump got to become president, a new emoji surged up the Emojipedia page traffic.
♨️ Finland Thinks Your Phone Needs an Emoji for Disrobing in the Sauna
The proposal for a Sauna emoji has been now been listed for Unicode 10 as Person in Steamy Room.
👍🏽 Create Animated GIFs that cycle all emoji skin tones
Inspired by Slack's ability to insert an animated thumbs-up emoji with all skin tones, this site allows you to do the same with any emoji.
🎨 How to insert multiple types of emoji in Photoshop
In the latest Photoshop release, you can insert native emoji, or vector emoji images from Emoji One.
🍑 Apple nips #PeachButtGate in the bud
After a short-lived modification in the first iOS 10.2 betas, the peach emoji returned to its cheeky former self in time the final iOS 10.2 release. We didn't know what we had until it was gone.
🎙 Podcasts
🎙 But Some People Hated The Blobs
Latest episode of Emoji Wrap recorded with the design team from Google in San Fransisco, for Emojicon: why hats on emoji are hard, mixed feelings about blobs, and decisions about emoji realism.
🤗 Lastly
Thanks as always for staying subscribed to this email. I'm hoping you find it a helpful way to see some emoji news you may have otherwise missed during the month. And to everyone that came to say hello after my talk at EmojiCon, it was a pleasure to meet you all and thank you for your kind words 🙇
To keep updated with more news throughout the month, you can follow me on Twitter at @jeremyburge this email at @EmojiWrap, or Emojipedia at @Emojipedia.