Apple and Google have revealed the latest emoji designs for World Emoji Day, which is today.
Created by Emojipedia founder Jeremy Burge in 2014, World Emoji Day has been historically used to reveal upcoming emojis, and this year is no different.
Early Friday morning, Emojipedia shared a first look at some of the new emoji designs coming to Apple users later this year. While the full list of new emojis was announced earlier in January 2020, this is the first glimpse of how they will appear on iOS screens later this year.
The list includes a dodo, tamale, set of pinched fingers, boomerang, ninja, coin, piñata, beaver, bubble tea, nesting dolls, and an all-gender sign. These emojis will be available in a free software update this fall.
While these emoji additions were all planned in advance, two have become increasingly applicable to the current landscape, given the coronavirus pandemic still ravaging the U.S. and other parts of the world. New heart and lung emojis are detailed to be anatomically correct, as to differentiate between the physical organs and the popular cartoonish heart symbol.
New memoji options, including new hairstyles, colored face coverings, while new headwear styles like a bike helmet and nurse cap will soon be available too in the free update.
Apple isn’t the only company jumping on the emoji bandwagon, as Google released its own set of Android 11 emoji designs ahead of World Emoji Day.
According to 9To5Google, the 65 new character are a part of a concerted effort for more compassionate depictions in the cartoon figures category. The Android 11 additions also include an anatomic lung and heart, but goes further with realistic and “authentic” animals, including a beaver and bison, as well as a turtle that might look familiar to users, as it was the original turtle emoji used in Android 7.1.
Android has also focused on other additions to improve emoji viewing conditions, reworking several emojis with dark and light viewing modes in mind.
While the Android 11 Beta is already available for some products like the Google Pixel 4, both Apple and Google will release their new emojis sometime in the fall, giving users on both sides of the aisle plenty of time to get creative with the emojis currently in their disposal.
