New inclusive emojis arriving in 2019 for iPhones and Androids
New emojis are coming out in 2019!- More than 50 new emojis will be made standard in 2019, based on a list from the Unicode Consortium.
- Many of the new emojis are tied together by the theme of inclusivity, introducing symbols for deaf people, blind people, and people in wheelchairs,
- While Unicode will make the new emojis official in March, it may be a while before they show up on your favorite device.
More than 50 new emojis will become standard in 2019, based on the final list approved by the Unicode Consortium. Unicode is responsible for defining which emojis make onto all platforms, including iPhones, Android devices, and computers.
What new emojis does the world need?
Many of the new icons are tied together by the theme of inclusivity, introducing emojis for deaf people, blind people, people in wheelchairs, and those with prosthetic limbs. This year's update will allow users to choose the race and gender of both people when choosing an emoji that features a couple. Unicode first introduced support for skin color in 2015, but users were limited to heterosexual emojis for couples, and could only select couples with the same skin tone.
While there are 59 distinct new emojis, variations for skin tone and gender make for a total of 230 individual images. A March 5th update to Unicode will make the emojis usable online, but each company will choose when to introduce their own versions of the new emojis. Apple typically adds new emojis to their iOS devices with a Fall update.
Here are the new emoji coming online later this year, with images from Emojipedia: