OS X 10.10.3 and iOS 8.3 Beta 2 Updates Introduce New Emoji, Skin Tone Modifiers

[MacRumors]

Today's second OS X 10.10.3 beta builds on the emoji groundwork laid with the first OS X 10.10.3 beta, introducing all new emoji and emoji skin tone modifiers. When selecting an emoji with a skin tone, such as one of the many people emoji, it's now possible to choose a specific skin tone from one of six options.

There are also several new people emoji that introduce greater diversity. Family emoji now include multiple same sex couples, both with children and without, all with variable skin tone options. Apple first promised to add more diversity to its emoji character set in early 2014, stating at that time that it was working with the Unicode Consortium to add more characters, and it appears the company will be making good on that pledge with the release of 10.10.3.

Along with a range of diversified people emoji, today's update brings 32 new country flags, including flags for Canada, Australia, and India.

Apple has also made several changes to emoji that are related to Apple products. The existing standard watch emoji has been replaced with an emoji that's based on its upcoming Apple Watch, with a black band and an analog watch face. The iPhone emoji has been updated to resemble the iPhone 6, and the computer emoji is now an iMac.

In addition to new emoji characters, OS X 10.10.3 introduces a renamed Character palette that focuses more heavily on emoji. Accessible through the "Edit" menu in most Mac apps, the palette was previously named "Special Characters," but is labeled "Emoji & Symbols" in OS X 10.10.3. The emoji picker has also been redesigned, featuring a layout with a single larger vertical-scrolling page for easier access to emoji.

The same diversified emoji options will be coming to iOS as well. Today's iOS 8.3 beta 2 update includes the same diversified emoji options and a redesigned emoji picker.

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: OS X 10.10.3 and iOS 8.3 Beta 2 Updates Introduce New Emoji, Skin Tone Modifiers

 

[tevion5]

Well finally! About damn time if you ask me.

At least now we can all get some sleep.

 

[Frign]

Diversity my ass, emojis are so great because they are actually free from racial influences, or actually, have been now.

 

[testcard]

So happy - just what the world needs.

 

[penajmz]

I love it honestly.

 

[JDee]

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.

Serious?

 

[jmh600cbr]

finally CANADA! emoji is still uglier than twitter's though

 

[maflynn]

I see this is pretty high up in Apple's priority, I kind of wished that they spent their liimited time and energy fixing the existing bugs instead.

 

[TsMkLg068426]

Oh this is so exciting....

 

[LordQ]

Diversity my ass, emojis are so great because they are actually free from racial influences, or actually, have been now.

My sentiments exactly.

Well, at least they added the Mexico flag. Here's hoping they add tacos

 

[xionxiox]

Diversity my ass, emojis are so great because they are actually free from racial influences, or actually, have been now.

Um...the default emojis are yellow or white. that's not what I consider free of "racial influence"

 

[Rogifan]

Well finally! About damn time if you ask me.

At least now we can all get some sleep.

Yes no one could sleep nights knowing there were no same sex couple emoji with children. It's so nice to see Apple tackling such important problems.

 

[jonnyb]

How is this political?

 

[MacSlut]

Diversity my ass, emojis are so great because they are actually free from racial influences, or actually, have been now.

What? Only the yellow ones are race-free. For the others, to paraphrase Henry Ford... currently you can have any race you want with emojis as long as it's white.

What Apple did here was rather brilliant. Think about this, the system is fully backwards compatible. The receiver will still see the emoji pallet based on their system, but if they're current on iOS or OS X, they'll see the updated emojis. Plus, they've done this without adding clutter. The UI presents them as modifiers to existing emojis, not as new individual emojis.

 

[gluckett]

Can't wait to see the Jony Ive video describing the thought process that went into the design of these new emojii.....

 

[Rogifan]

I see this is pretty high up in Apple's priority, I kind of wished that they spent their liimited time and energy fixing the existing bugs instead.

It's obvious this kind of stuff is high-up on Tim Cook's priority list. Meanwhile copy/paste and text selection in general still sucks in Safari on iOS 8.

 

[Worf]

I see this is pretty high up in Apple's priority, I kind of wished that they spent their liimited time and energy fixing the existing bugs instead.

the logic with these type of posts is always faulty. Apple is always focusing on bugs and they can always allocate more resources if they think certain features require it.

 

[xionxiox]

I see this is pretty high up in Apple's priority, I kind of wished that they spent their liimited time and energy fixing the existing bugs instead.

Yes I'm sure they deterred billions of dollars from the engineering department to the art department.

 

[gluckett]

Yes I'm sure they deterred billions of dollars from the engineering department to the art department.

No, instead they deterred it to the automobile department.

 

[AlecZ]

The only thing I'd care about would be having every country's flag, just because I sometimes want to send a flag but don't have it available. Who actually uses the non-yellow faces?

 

[shandyman]

So, no surprises that people are gonna moan that Apple are wasting time on this. Because Apple will have only spent the entire time, using every member of staff, to solely work on this....... #

 

[Rogifan]

Can't wait to see the Jony Ive video describing the thought process that went into the design of these new emojii.....

Nah, that would come from Tim Cook. He's the one obsessing over stuff like this. Like incorporating gay rights into a cybersecurity speech.

 

[MacintoshMan]

Now I can make offensive emojis

 

[tod]

Emoji are a terrible idea, culturally. We have a wonderful system of language that we can use to express concepts with any degree of precision desired. It is idiotic to instead use a picture based language that only allows for ambiguity. The popularity of emoji is a step backwards for society.

 

[citizenzen]

Emoji are a terrible idea, culturally. We have a wonderful system of language that we can use to express concepts with any degree of precision desired. It is idiotic to instead use a picture based language that only allows for ambiguity. The popularity of emoji is a step backwards for society.

There are so many, many things I'd worry about before I cared that much (one way or the other) about emoji.