Apple Planning to Add More Diversity to Emoji Character Set

MacRumors · Mar 25, 2014

Apple has plans to expand its emoji set to include emojis that are non-caucasian, according to Apple's vice president of worldwide corporate communications, Katie Cotton, who spoke to MTV Act (via The Verge). The company says it is working with the Unicode Consortium to add more characters to its emoji offerings.

"Tim forwarded your email to me. We agree with you. Our emoji characters are based on the Unicode standard, which is necessary for them to be displayed properly across many platforms. There needs to be more diversity in the emoji character set, and we have been working closely with the Unicode Consortium in an effort to update the standard."

After originating in Japan, emoji were incorporated into Unicode, which allowed them to be used on multiple platforms. The character set has largely featured caucasian icons, however, which Apple aims to change.

Apple's last change to emojis came with iOS 6, when the company added additional characters and made emoji accessible to all users. Previously, special apps were required to access emoji on iOS. iOS 7, released in late 2013, did not include any new emoji, but it is possible Apple could make some changes to the characters with iOS 8 later this year.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Apple Planning to Add More Diversity to Emoji Character Set

acfusion29 · Mar 25, 2014

just dont get rid of my most used emoji..

#########

penplotter · Mar 25, 2014

Cork asian; an Irish Indian

Better not upset the PC crowd - better create smileys for EVERY civilisation, if this is to be taken seriously, or there'll be a riot at PC-correctness towers.

FakeWozniak · Mar 25, 2014

There's a standards body responsible for emoji!!!!

KieranDotW · Mar 25, 2014

acfusion29 said:
just dont get rid of my most used emoji..

#########

Too many people I know use that as a substitute to the missing African-American emoji. Proof we could use a little change.

Zaqfalcon · Mar 25, 2014

Not enough cats.

Rogifan · Mar 25, 2014

So will we have as many new emoji as Facebook has gender options?

penplotter · Mar 25, 2014

Zaqfalcon said:
Not enough cats.

Yep. They'd better add ALL cat species to the set, or it'll be "unfair"

garylapointe · Mar 25, 2014

Android converts

This is THE feature that's finally going to get Android users to switch over to iOS!!!

Gary

comics addict · Mar 25, 2014

I never used human looking emojis beyond the standard yellow ones :/

bug67 · Mar 25, 2014

Can we get a motorcycle one?

garylapointe · Mar 25, 2014

Followup

The best part is that in a 6-12 months we can see a follow up article that tells us that it finally happened and it'll had links back to this one ("as previously mentioned").

I used to get SO excited when I'd see new MacRumors articles in my feedreader...

Gary

tkermit · Mar 25, 2014

MacRumors said:
There needs to be more diversity in the emoji character set

okay...i guess?

kmj2318 · Mar 25, 2014

Being white, predictably, I didn't recognize the lack of diversity.

Tiger8 · Mar 25, 2014

comics addict said:
I never used human looking emojis beyond the standard yellow ones :/

Yup, me too.

Happybunny · Mar 25, 2014

Zaqfalcon said:
Not enough cats.

Or bunnies ....

Jett0516 · Mar 25, 2014

I'd like to see a Steve Jobs emoji. :apple:

acfusion29 · Mar 25, 2014

KieranDotW said:
Too many people I know use that as a substitute to the missing African-American emoji. Proof we could use a little change.

i don't use it to substitute anything. i just use it cause it's creepy and funny lol.

it's a damn moon

cocky jeremy · Mar 25, 2014

We don't need more races, we need more yellow faces and animals!

kalsta · Mar 25, 2014

Gosh, the cartoon faces in that picture are hideous. I think I'd consider it an honour not to have my ethnic group featured in that style!

petsounds · Mar 25, 2014

garylapointe said:
This is THE feature that's finally going to get Android users to switch over to iOS!!!

Any characters added to Unicode would also be available for other platforms to use, so unless Google is anti-diversity they'll get them too (but you might need to buy a new phone to get the update).

I think this is going to make it more necessary to rethink how emoji is accessed on the keyboard though. It's already a pain to switch keyboard sets back and forth. There should be an emoji button on the main language keyboards, and perhaps text shortcodes like :grin or :cat to quickly substitute them in without having to hunt for the icon.

kalsta · Mar 25, 2014

petsounds said:
There should be an emoji button on the main language keyboards

Please no.

2457282 · Mar 25, 2014

cocky jeremy said:
We don't need more races, we need more yellow faces and animals!

That is a racist comment... we need green faces too, and blue... oh and don't forget purple and red. I mean those are the colors that MacRumor uses. Basically, we should have all the emoticons in all 64 colors from the 64 crayon Crayola box.

On a more serious note, it seems to me that in my circle it is only the younger in the crowd that use pictorial emoticons. At best, my group has mastered the text based smiley face. Although there is a debate between

and

among the less techy folks in the group.

larrylaffer · Mar 25, 2014

penplotter said:
Cork asian; an Irish Indian

Better not upset the PC crowd - better create smileys for EVERY civilisation, if this is to be taken seriously, or there'll be a riot at PC-correctness towers.

Image

You really crack me up Daniel Carver.

Renzatic · Mar 25, 2014

Jesus, people. Really? How the hell does a thread about the Emoji set get sent down to PRSI? Are we really that damn obnoxious?

Apple Planning to Add More Diversity to Emoji Character Set

macrumors bot

macrumors 68040

macrumors regular

macrumors 6502

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 6502

macrumors Penryn

macrumors regular

macrumors 68000

macrumors 6502a

macrumors regular

macrumors 68000

macrumors 68040

macrumors 68000

macrumors 68020

macrumors 68000

macrumors 65816

macrumors 68040

macrumors 603

macrumors 68000

macrumors 65816

macrumors 68000

Suspended

macrumors 6502a

Suspended

Our Staff