AppleInsider Staff
The Unicode Consortium on Tuesday released version 10.0 of the Unicode Standard, offering a preview of new text characters and emoji that will likely arrive on Apple platforms like iOS later this year.
According to an announcement posted to the Unicode Blog, version 10.0 marks the first release in which both the core specification and data files are being made available simultaneously.
The latest Unicode iteration introduces 8,518 characters for a total of 136,690 characters. Four new scripts are also included in the release, bringing the total up to 139 scripts. Of note, the script additions support lesser used languages and specific written requirements like Masaram Gondi, Syriac letters, a set of 285 Hentaigana characters and more.
For iPhone users, the biggest additions for any Unicode launch are emoji characters. Version 10.0 introduces a slate of 56 new emoji including the Bitcoin symbol, a sampling of smiley faces, two dinosaurs, fantasy characters like mages and merpersons, flags, animals, bugs, foods and more.
As outlined by Emojipedia, Emoji 5.0 contains 56 code points that can be modified to create a total of 239 unique emoji.
A member of the Unicode Consortium, Apple is traditionally one of the first consumer manufacturers to implement newly released emoji in its various platforms. Integration normally starts with iOS and trickles down to macOS, though recent releases have seen the company implement Unicode sequences congruently.
Most recently, Apple in December added about 72 new emoji issued with the Unicode 9.9 standard. That particular release also incorporated redrawn and redesigned assets.
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
16 Comments
That brain emoji looked like piece of meat to me at first.
Finally! A puking person emoji.
I'll probably use that more than I expect.
Why do we need wizards, genies, elves, zombies, mermaids, vampires, and pixies? Why do we need… uh, steamy… spoon people? I see that the Unicode Consortium appears to be so sore about BREXIT that they've added BRITUP flags (with Ulster missing, so I suppose they're really not Unionists…)
Well, the new language of the Internet is Emoji. Looks like I'll be going back to school.
Is that thing yawning or tearing out it's own eyeballs?
I'm going to go with the 2nd option...there are some things I've seen that can't be unseen.