Apple has announced a series of new emoji characters that will come to iPad and iPhone with the upcoming iOS 11.1 update. On Thursday, the California-based company also showed some of the new emojis that will be available after the update.
Image Source: Apple.com (screenshot)Revealed emojis include the shushing face, the “I love you” gesture, scarf, brain, fortune cookie, hedgehog, vomiting face, exploding head, t-rex, and vampire, among others. Of all the new emojis, the “I love you” gesture may be the most popular. The new emoji has the middle fingers curled and the pinky, forefinger and thumb stretched out. The gesture based on the “I love you” hand sign in American Sign Language is not new, but the emoji expressing the gesture is definitely new.
“The new emojis are designed to reveal every detail and adapted from approved characters in Unicode 10. iOS 11.1 will also include characters announced on World Emoji Day,” Apple said in a blog post.
Other emojis that are expected to come with the update are person in lotus position, woman climbing, person climbing, woman zombie and man zombie. Then there are food emojis such as dumplings, fortune cookie and canned food. Although red-headed emojis are not included in the series this time, they could be added in the summer of 2018. Further, the iOS 11 update will include three new flags: Scottish, Welsh and English.
Rival Android already has most of the emojis, but most of the users are still not using that version of the software. However, developers are now working towards bringing all other emojis on the older versions as well, notes The Verge. Just a few days back, Facebook-owned Whatsapp unveiled a whole set of new emojis for Android beta. Facebook Messenger, on the other hand, has a totally different set of emojis, which the company unveiled in June 2016, notes Indian Express.
Unicode Consortium is the organization that checks the new emoji proposals and approves a new group of smileys, as well as, symbols that tech companies such as Twitter, Samsung, Facebook and Apple introduce on their platform. Back in 2015, emojis were characterized as one of the fastest growing language in the UK, and it is evolving faster than several ancient types of communication, notes BreakingNews. The name “emojis” originates from a Japanese word meaning “picture” and “Character.”
Apart from emojis, the iOS 11 update will come with various other features such as Siri Translator, which would enable Siri to translate in five languages including French, Chinese, Spanish and English. The update will also bring ad blocking capabilities and other useful features such as “Type To Siri” and customizable control center.
Although, it is not clear when Apple is planning to release the iOS 11.1 or version of macOS and watch OS with new emojis. Going by the past track, new set of emojis would be available for the masses by the end of October or early November. The new emojis will join the old set of emojis, which were released in July. Beta version of iOS 11.1 will be available next week.
