By: Nick Gambino
Apple is already testing iOS 14.2 and the newest beta is giving us our first glimpse into a ton of new emojis coming to the iPhone. We knew these emojis were imminent as Apple gave us a small preview back in July on World Emoji Day (yes, that’s apparently a thing).
The new batch of emojis includes a few never-before-seen ones that have been missing from our arsenal and will help to communicate more specific emotions. This includes emojis like the Smiling Face with Tear that helps you capture the nuance of being happy with tears, an obvious one that hasn’t made an appearance until now. We’ve had the Face with Tears of Joy emoji for years now, but this is different.
More importantly, there are more inclusive emojis that allow for a wider display of identities. This includes options that are more gender inclusive like a woman in a tuxedo and a man in a wedding dress and veil. The bottle-feeding emojis are new additions that accompany the breast-feeding emoji added 3 years ago. There’s even a new Santa Claus variation called “Mx Claus” that looks like a non-specific mix between Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus.
A transgender flag and transgender symbol also make an appearance in the second beta of iOS 14.2. The new People Hugging emoji went with a more nondescript design, probably to avoid having to create numerous options. This one is little more than faceless grayish-blue silhouettes of two people embracing. It’s in the style of the Busts in Silhouette emoji.
Then there are those created more for fun than anything. We finally get the Italian gesture emoji that I would call the “Capiche” emoji, but they decided to go with the far more bland “Pinched Fingers” label. Others include a cockroach, beaver, dodo bird, roller-skate, nesting doll, ladder and other more innocuous emojis that will probably make scarce appearances in your texts.
All of this is in addition to other changes made this year. 2020 is the year of the face mask, so Apple added a number of face mask options for the Memoji a few months back.
You won’t see any of these new emojis unless you’ve got the iOS 14.2 beta, but once it gets an official release, just update and you’ll see it.
