Paul Morris on June 21, 2017, 7:51 pm

Unicode 10 With 56 New Emoji Officially Released, Coming To iOS 11 Soon

There’s some great news for those smartphone-loving folks who love to communicate with expressive characters.

The Unicode Consortium has today officially announced the existence of Unicode 10, which is not only the next step in the progression of Unicode but also a version which introduces a whopping 56 new emoji characters.

This is the first time in the history of the Unicode standard being updated that the core specification and the data files have been made available at the same time. For those that really care about the nitty gritty of these updates, Unicode 10 adds 8,518 characters to the standard, which means that Unicode now sits at a total of 136,690 characters. In addition to the 56 new emoji characters, there are also four new scripts baked in:

Unicode 10.0 adds 8,518 characters, for a total of 136,690 characters. These additions include 4 new scripts, for a total of 139 scripts, as well as 56 new emoji characters. The new scripts and characters in Version 10.0 add support for lesser-used languages and unique written requirements worldwide.

The introduction of those 56 new emoji characters means that the new images will likely be embedded into a future version of iOS for Apple devices. Given that iOS 11 is currently in test, and will ultimately be released to the public later in the year alongside Apple’s new iPhone 8, it stands to reason that we will see the new characters either appear with the global release or potentially in one of the pre-release seeds leading up to that release.

As for what excited emoji fans can expect, there will be a new Exploding Head emoji, a gorgeous little Hedgehog, a lovely set of Gloves, and even a Person in a Steamy Room for those times when you need to express relaxation and a desire to chill out. There’s also the inclusion of a Bitcoin symbol which just goes to show how that particular cryptocurrency has managed to worm its way into our modern way of thinking.

All 56 new emoji characters introduced in Unicode 10 are as follows:

Star-Struck

Face With Raised Eyebrow

Exploding Head

Crazy Face

Face With Symbols Over Mouth

Face Vomiting

Shushing Face

Face With Hand Over Mouth

Face With Monocle

Child

Adult

Older Adult

Woman With Headscarf

Bearded Person

Breast-Feeding

Mage

Fairy

Vampire

Merperson

Elf

Genie

Zombie

Person in Steamy Room

Person Climbing

Person in Lotus Position

Love-You Gesture

Palms Up Together

Brain

Orange Heart

Scarf

Gloves

Coat

Socks

Billed Cap

Zebra

Giraffe

Hedgehog

Sauropod

T-Rex

Cricket

Coconut

Broccoli

Pretze

Cut of Meat

Sandwich

Bowl With Spoon

Canned Food

Dumpling

Fortune Cookie

Takeout Box

Pie

Cup With Straw

Chopsticks

Flying Saucer

Sled

Curling Stone

Apple didn’t take very long at all to integrate Unicode 9.0 into iOS 10.2, complete with 72 new icons, so we would expect similar haste with the release of Unicode 10. Apple may have done a wonderful job of making iOS 11 extremely desirable, but could it be the inclusion of these new emoji characters which actually tips people over the edge?

(via: Emojipedia)