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Fall Unicode update will add 8 emoji to our keyboards
Dwight Schrute's proposal for a beet emoji was finally answered
Don't you just hate it when you want to explain in a text that you've been up all night digging up beets in your garden? Or that you're at a crime scene where a harp player was kidnapped while walking through a winter wood? When words just don't do it justice, we have the assistance of emoji to get our point across, for practically any emotion... or bizarrely specific circumstance. Occasionally, we're met with the frustrating first-world problem of not having an emoji to depict what we're experiencing or feeling. That's why the folks in charge of that keyboard of little pictures periodically consider suggestions for new additions to their repertoire.
The Unicode Consortium — the group in charge of all the symbols we use on computing platforms and how we use them — is taking 2023 to adjust to a new annual cadence in updating its guidelines after the COVID pandemic effectively knocked its March publications back to September. You might've noticed the new batch from Emoji 15.0 dropping on your Galaxies and Pixels since the fall. This means we'll be seeing Unicode 16.0 in September 2024 and a smaller Unicode 15.1 update this fall. So it goes for the Emoji 15.1 standard as we get a preview of what it will bring.
Take a gander at the goose and other new emojis coming to your phone in 2022
Plus a moose, a jellyfish, and plenty more
Since 1988, the Unicode Consortium has been quietly working behind the scenes to standardize how text gets displayed on the web. In 2010, it first incorporated support for the initial batch of 722 emoji. Since then, hundreds more have been added, with the latest batch made official back in September. Today, we got our first look at the proposals for the next lot.
Back in 2020, the Unicode Consortium decided it was better to delay the release of Unicode 14.0, potentially meaning there wouldn't be any new emojis in 2021. Thankfully, Emoji 13.1 was created as an interim release, bringing 217 new ones to our devices. We're getting closer to the release of Unicode 14.0, which, thanks to Emoji 14.0, would bring a handful of new ones on our phones.
Gboard's glorious Emoji Kitchen combos now support Unicode 13.1 (APK Download)
Prepare for even more emoji fun
Emoji Kitchen is one of the funnest things to make its way into Gboard in years, and Google is constantly working on improving the emoji mix-and-match feature. In its latest iteration, we finally get support for the newest emoji that were introduced as part of Unicode 13.1.
Pixel phones got 217 new emoji with the December update
More ways to convey what you don’t wanna say
Besides getting bumped to the December security level, Pixel phones picked up a pretty big-ass feature drop on Monday. There was so much new stuff that one prominent feature slipped under the radar: We’re talking about the latest Emoji 13.1 version that has gone live for Pixel phones ahead of its planned broader release in 2021.
2021 will bring 217 new emoji to your devices
It's a relatively minor update, thanks to the pandemic
We have good news for the emoji enthusiasts among you all: 217 new emoji have made it to the final Emoji 13.1 list, meaning that you'll soon have some more faces to send to your friends in text messages. Many of these are just skin tone variations, but there are some completely new emoji.
Here are the 117 new emoji you've got to learn for Android 11
And re-learn what a bunch more look like
As the Android 11 team worked on new features and system-level changes over these past few months of the beta process, the Google emoji team was doing the same, adding 117 new entries approved by the Unicode Commission. We got an early look at the updated emoji library last month, and now these emoji are saying hello to everyone as Android 11 begins rolling out to the general public.
Gboard picks up convenient table-based UI for choosing emoji skin tone combinations
New changes keep the Gboard team from saying "Gee, we're bored."
Emoji allows for creative forms of self-expression not possible through mere words. The tiny little icons have gotten a lot more customizable since their inception in 1997. Google added support for multiple skin tones with Android Nougat in 2016, and while it's great to see folks from all over represented, the increased number of modifications did introduce UI challenges. Now Gboard is rolling out a new interface that makes selecting between different combinations of skin tone a little bit easier.
Despite delays, there will be new emoji in 2021
Because we couldn't keep using the same old ones for so long
Back in April, we were reporting the coronavirus pandemic would delay Unicode 14.0's release by six months, implying no new emoji would be released in 2021. Thankfully, a minor update called Emoji 13.1 is said to be in the making, which should bring some new additions next year.
Like almost any new Android version, Android 11 ships with a selection of new emoji — 117, to be exact. If you currently want to use them in texts and messages, you need to copy and paste them from resources like Emojipedia, but that's finally changing. The latest Gboard beta is adding initial support for the new Emoji 13 set on Android 11.
A new Android version would never be complete without a selection of new emoji. While keyboards and apps can take advantage of the emoji support library introduced with Android O and display any emoji independently, having new smilies in the system itself means you can see them in notifications and in those applications that don't rely on the EmojiCompat library. Subsequently, the Android 11 Beta packs all of the emoticons from the latest Unicode Emoji 13 update.
SwiftKey picks up Emoji 12.0 support, more conspicuous Microsoft branding
Four years after the acquisition, Microsoft puts its name front and center
Microsoft acquired SwiftKey about four years ago, and apart from some additions like optional Microsoft accounts, Bing, and the company's translate feature, it didn't change too much about the popular third-party keyboard. Earlier this year, though, Microsoft's name got more prominent in the app's settings, and now, the Redmond giant has decided it's about time to make it even more obvious whose keyboard you're using. Following a beta test run, the latest stable version of SwiftKey is now called "Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard" and comes with a refreshed logo. On the feature front, it only offers new emoji for Android 10 users.
Each year, the Unicode Consortium receives innumerable suggestions of new emoji to add to the already exhaustive library of designs. Emoji 12.1 was released this past winter and included such hits as "farmer with pitchfork" and "person with probing cane." By the end of this most recent proposal cycle for Emoji 13.0, Unicode had picked roughly 60 designs that now go on to be officially designed and distributed by each emoji-using platform.
Unicode 12.0 was officially announced many months ago, but the emojis and changes it brought have slowly been trickling down to different platforms. Google already implemented them in Android 10, but WhatsApp, which likes to use its own cross-platform designs, is just now following suit.
The Unicode Consortium has released Emoji 12.1, and with it, 168 new emoji. Well, they're not entirely new; the majority are variations on existing emoji to provide greater flexibility when selecting characters. Many of the new additions come by way of additional hair styles.
Gboard's latest update is out, but the changes are pretty sparse. Outside of a few wording changes and surely some bug fixes, there's not much for users to see. In fact, most of these updates include a plethora of new languages, keyboards for specific geographic regions, or other similar customizations, but even those aren't to be found in this update. However, a teardown does turn up one upcoming addition in the form of a new keyboard dedicated to useful symbols.
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Android P Beta 2 / DP3 just landed earlier today, and while we're digging in to look for new features, a few of the more visually apparent additions have already been revealed. Today's release includes support for Unicode/Emoji 11.0—which was technically only officially released yesterday—as well as some tweaked gender-inclusive family and couple emoji which more closely follow the Unicode standard.
Unicode 11.0 will be officially released on Tuesday, June 5th. The only part of that most people care about is the new emojis that will come with it. While it would be great if the Unicode Consortium could push these new emojis directly to your favorite communication platforms, it has to wait on vendors to push out their own emoji updates (that sounds familiar). Thankfully, we've been through this enough to have reasonable expectations for when Emoji 11.0 will hit Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other popular platforms.
We've seen a lot of important news over the past few days during Google I/O, but we know all you really care about it when Unicode is going to introduce a falafel emoji. You'll be pleased to see it's one of the candidates for the Emoji 12.0 update due in the first quarter of next year.