Three new shades of heart have been introduced – light blue, pink and gray – as well as several animals such as a donkey and a goose, vegetables in the form of peas and ginger and cultural objects such as maracas and a wooden flute. Two new icons have also been introduced: a pink Khanda representing Sikhism along with the other major world religions and a blue wifi logo. The Unicode Consortium, an industry body that handles text rendering standards, is responsible for approving new emoji designs before individual smartphone manufacturers choose how to render them. For eight years, the online resource Emojipedia has provided “sample images,” depicting new emoji in the style of Apple’s iOS emoji set, to help you visualize how the designs will appear in next year’s updates. This year’s cohort of new emoji is the smallest ever and has no “person-syle” entries. Photo: Emojipedia “Furthermore, as this is only a draft emoji list, each emoji is subject to change before final approval in September 2022,” said Keith Broni, the editor-in-chief of Emojipedia. “However, it’s worth noting that the majority of draft emoji candidates have ended up on the final list in recent years.” The pink heart is a highly desired new emoji, Broni added, and has been one of the most popular emoji requests since the company started tracking them in 2016. But other than that, it’s slim pickings for emoji fans: the update Emoji 15.0 is the smallest ever, with only 31 new symbols introduced. Last year, in Emoji 14.0, more than 100 were introduced. And for the first time, there isn’t a single new “personal style” emoji among the new additions. The draft list is due to be finalized in September, at which point device manufacturers will be able to launch their own implementation. For iOS, this usually comes in January of each year, while Android devices vary by manufacturer.
