Apple's accessibility emojis added to draft emoji list for 2019
Emojis to represent deaf people and a service dog has been added to the emoji draft candidates list
Emojis to represent deaf people and a service dog have been added to the emoji draft candidates list.
If the deaf person emoji and service dog pass the next stage of voting, then the emoji could enter the Unicode standard. The next vote is scheduled for Q1 of 2019, with an aim to release successful emoji by the end of the year.
The accessibility emojis were originally designed by Apple to represent disabled emoji users. Included in their proposal were emoji for prosthetic limbs, hearing aids and wheelchairs.
The new draft candidate list emojis received approval in a recent Unicode meeting. In the same meeting, interracial couple emoji were also given the green light, much to the delight of campaigners Tinder.
The new symbols join already drafted symbols like the ice cube, flamingo, sloth and waffle emojis. Provisional candidates for 2020 also received attention. The ninja, magic wand, mammoth, feather, and dodo are all hopefuls for the future.
Unicode's latest Emoji release, 12.0 - is only just being rolled out to smartphones and computers. Twitter was one of the first to implement the new emojis, with Google expected to come second.
The 12.0 emojis include new hairstyles like the ginger hair emoji and new animals like the lobster. There are even emoji for superheroes and supervillains.
Google recently teased the new designs for the next Android OS release, which is expected to launch later this year.
