Today is World Emoji Day, and to celebrate, Apple has revealed the final versions of some of the new emoji it will be introducing to iOS in the next version of iOS 11, which is due out this autumn.
Among the new pictograms the company has showed off are “bearded person” and “breastfeeding”, and food items such as “sandwich” and “coconut”.
“More animals and mythical creatures like T rex, zebra, zombie and elf are a fun way to describe situations and new Star-Struck and Exploding Head smiley faces make any message more fun,” the company said.
Jeremy Burge, the head of emoji resource Emojipedia and creator of World Emoji Day, said he expects the smilies, which also include a vomiting face and a wacky face, to be the most popular.
“The most popular emojis with users are always the smileys and gestures,” Burge said, speaking from a car on the way to the Empire State Building, which will be lit up yellow to celebrate the day. “These regularly top Emojipedia stats and platforms like Twitter and Facebook.”
After the latest group of emoji, which included some much-requested additions including “woman with headscarf”, Burge thought that a redheaded emoji was the most-requested icon that still doesn’t come with iPhones.
“Emojipedia requests show a redhead emoji dominating requests for future additions,” he said. “Redhead is now a candidate for 2018, as well as curly hair and a bald headed person.
“There’s been a lot of demand for a ‘hand heart’ emoji,” Burge said, “which looks like two hands making a heart shaped gesture. Hearts are always very well used on social and messaging platforms, so it makes sense that people want more variety in how they do that.”
Burge said he was “pretty chuffed” for Apple to acknowledge World Emoji Day for the first time, “as their calendar emoji design showing July 17 [📆] is the reason I made World Emoji Day today in the first place. It makes sense that they might want to be involved on a day they unwittingly helped create.”
