With the arrival of summer, the Unicode Consortium has unveiled a sneak peek of potential new emoji that could grace our screens with the release of iOS 18, anticipated later this year or early next year. Apple holds the reins in deciding when to officially roll out these emoji updates across its suite of operating systems, which include iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, and visionOS.
The latest emoji preview offers a diverse range, catering to various expressions and objects. Among the highlights are a sleepy face emoji, a fingerprint emoji, a leafless tree emoji, a vegetable root emoji, a harp emoji, a shovel emoji, and a splatter emoji. These early designs provided by Unicode act as a starting point for Apple’s designers to further refine and finalize the images. Google and other platforms will also utilize these initial designs as a foundation for their own emoji variations.
Drawing from previous patterns, we can anticipate that Apple may not immediately introduce these new emoji with the initial release of iOS 18. Instead, we might see their arrival in a subsequent update, potentially iOS 18.3 or iOS 18.4. The most recent batch of new emoji, unveiled last year, made their debut with the release of iOS 17.4 in March.
The advent of emoji can be traced back to the 1980s, but it was in the early 21st century that they truly blossomed in popularity. The introduction of the Unicode Standard in the 2010s played a pivotal role in their widespread adoption, ensuring consistent encoding across various devices and platforms. Today, emoji have become an integral part of our digital communication, constantly evolving with new additions and variations to reflect the ever-changing landscape of our cultural expression.
Apple is set to unveil the next iterations of its operating systems, including iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, and visionOS, on Monday, June 10, during the keynote address that marks the commencement of this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). This highly anticipated event is expected to shed light on the latest innovations and advancements from the Cupertino tech giant.
