AppleInsider Staff
According to a report released on Tuesday, Apple is planning to update the emoji characters used in iOS and OS X soft keyboards with a new, more diverse selection of characters.
Emojis, first introduced in Japan as an alternative to text-based emoticons, have become ubiquitous in messaging as the icons can quickly convey feelings with a picture instead of words. Of the large number of human characters available, MTV Act wondered why most were clearly of caucasian decent.
The publication wrote directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook and today received a reply from Apple representative Katie Cotton.
Tim forwarded your email to me. We agree with you. Our emoji characters are based on the Unicode standard, which is necessary for them to be displayed properly across many platforms. There needs to be more diversity in the emoji character set, and we have been working closely with the Unicode Consortium in an effort to update the standard.
While Apple's current list of emojis consists of various smiley faces, foods, plants and symbols, some are concerned at the distinct lack of diversity when it comes to ethnicities. There are a few generic representations, like Chinese, Indians and Russians, but other races have yet to make their way to the platform.
As noted by The Verge, Apple's last update to its emoji character set brought same-sex couples and families into the fold as part of iOS 6.
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49 Comments
If I didn't know, I'd think this was an Onion story.
Emoji's are pointless to begin with, but if you must have them, then you might as well be thorough with the selection...
Perhaps more colors for
?
I'd like to know if the original emoji created by Shigetaka Kurita working with NTT DoCoMo's i-mode mobile internet platform team used Caucasoid-like features for the characters, if they originally had Mongoloid-like features, or if there were no human-like characters at all (just various forms of "smiley" faces). If the were Caucasoid-like characters then why didn't they use Mongoloid-like characters since it was strictly a specific carrier in Japanese at the time of its release? If it wasn't until some later time that the characters were made to look Caucasoid-like — perhaps when being added to Unicode — then why wasn't their a consideration for representing other general physical characteristics of the human race? PS: I'm using scientific terms in physical anthropology and not any pejorative slang to which you may [I]only[/I] be familiar. edit: Country flags are woefully under-supported as well. [IMG ALT=""]http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/40630/width/500/height/1000[/IMG]
See? You keep harassing the AI writers about Android nonsense on slow news days and this what you get! /s
Yes! I like using them and some black-looking emojis that don't have a turban ???? would be awesome.