Get Ready for New Emojis: Android, iOS, and WhatsApp to Receive Updates

For many years, the list of available emojis on your smartphone, tablet, Mac, or PC has been steadily growing. This is not only due to manufacturers like Apple, Google, or Microsoft. As MacRumors reports, the so-called Unicode Consortium has started the beta phase for Unicode 16.0. Currently, this includes a small series of new symbols that you will likely be able to use on your devices and in apps like WhatsApp throughout the year.

Eight new emojis: Eye bags, shovels, and a flag

Currently, the beta version of Unicode 16.0 includes comparatively few new emoji suggestions. These include the following eight symbols:

• Face with eye bags
• Fingerprint
• Tree without leaves
• Root vegetable
• Harp
• Shovel
• Splatter
• Flag of Sark

The beta phase for the suggestions runs until July 2, 2024. After that, the new characters and symbols will be officially adopted and can be integrated into the companies' software. Smartphone manufacturers like Apple or Google usually take a few months to make the presented emojis available in iOS and other systems.

The new symbols are also a helpful means of encouraging users to upgrade. The updated emojis will likely become part of an iOS 18 update for iPhone users. The exact version is still unknown. However, it will probably take a few more months until you can use them.

When will the implementation at Apple and Google occur?

The last emoji update at Apple was with iOS 17.4 in March of last year. The new graphics included, among other things, a shaking head, a lime, and a broken chain. To assess the availability and how long it took, these new symbols were already approved in September 2023.

Google's Android is expected to do the same thing. Since companies like Samsung, Meta, or Microsoft develop their own versions of the new emojis, the availability of symbols on respective devices varies between different manufacturers.