Apple’s finally made more diverse emoji

Apple’s finally made some new, diverse emoji.

It only took eight years, but the company’s realised that mayyyyybe it wasn’t quite right that white people had loads of different ways to represent themselves – from a flamenco dancer to Santa to side-kicking twins – while people of colour just got a racial stereotype or two.

Anyway, they’ve got with the programme at last, and will be releasing a new set of emoji soon. According to The Next Web, developers got first look at a beta version of the new sets yesterday. They’re expected to be released with the next version of iOS and OS X later this year.

From then on, users will be able to choose from a variety of skin tones for each person-emoji they pick. (The default option is smiley-face yellow, which is NOT designed to represent any ethnic group.) The stereotypical man in turban and East Asian boy in hat are still kicking around, but you’ll be able to make them white if you wish.

There’ll also be different hair colours available, and more importantly, different types of families – two women with one or two children, and the same for men.
The new diverse emoji have mostly had the thumbs up from users, although some have pointed out that all of none of the black emoji has natural hair. Not as offensive, but still an omission, is the fact that there isn’t a single redhead in the bunch.

Don’t worry though: Cupertino hasn’t forgotten to add iPhone 6 and Apple Watch icons to the tech selection (along with that ever-useful pager and fax).

Image via The Next Web.