Apple Previews A Few Emoji That Will Be Launching Later This Year

In celebration of World Emoji Day, Apple has released previews of a few of its new emoji, which will be making their debut on iOS, watchOS, and macOS a few months from now. Some of the new emoji include a green tyrannosaur and an elf (to the delight of dinophiles and Tolkien fans), as well as new additions (like a lady wearing a headscarf, or a mother breast feeding her child))that should further diversify the current library of pictograms.

The upcoming new emoji are all part of the launch of the Unicode Emoji 5.0 standard, which was finalized about four months ago and then released for public use a couple of months later. With that release, a total of 69 additions were included in the library, and Apple has gamely taken the opportunity to show off more than a dozen of its own take on the new standardized pictograms this week.

Apart from the T-Rex and the elf mentioned earlier, Apple’s new emoji also include an exploding head smiley (Scanners, anyone?), and the vomiting smiley, plus graphically cute representations of creatures (real or otherwise) like the zebra, or the genie of the lamp. For foodies, they might be delighted to know that a sandwich emoji now exists. 

On top of previewing some new emoji, Apple has also been busy with other things, like changing the names of some of its emoji interpretations of film in the iTunes store. For curious iOS mobile users, they might want to head to the movies section of the store on iOS or in iTunes on the desktop, and have fun trying to figure out the pictogram representations. 

Much has been written about how today’s consumers are needing more emoji than ever to express their emotions, reactions, or philosophical thoughts. Emoji may be cute little things but one can not just create one without the approval of the Unicode Consortium. You can think of this organization as a sort of regulating body that makes sure that all approved emoji are up to established standards.

The fact that the Unicode Consortium even exists is testament to the popularity of emoji. What makes these pictograms so universally loved is because they transcend language barriers. Regardless of one’s culture, you would definitely relate to a facepalm emoji, and even if you do not always understand what that other dude is texting, if you see a winking smiley, you would know the guy is just pulling your leg.