Apple has unveiled more than 350 new emoji as part of its iOS 13.2 update, including gender-neutral characters, different skin tones, emoji with disabilities, and even a period emoji.
Scroll down to read more about the updates and see photographs of the new emoji.
- You can choose the ethnicities of the characters holding hands. While previously, the holding hands emoji featured two emoji — male and female, female and female, or male and male — of the same ethnicity, the iOS 13.2 update allows you to choose different ethnicities for each, which is far more inclusive.
- There are emojis of people with disabilities too. The new emojis include an ear with a hearing aid, characters with wheelchairs and walking sticks, guide dogs, prosthetic limbs, and even characters doing sign language.
- There’s even a blood drop emoji now to symbolize periods. This one was a long time in the making, but Plan International UK’s chief executive Rose Caldwell was pleased to see it finally go live. “We are thrilled to see the arrival of this long-awaited blood drop emoji, which signals a real breakthrough in the fight against period stigma,” she said in a statement. “Girls, women and other menstruators told us this emoji would help them talk more freely about their periods, which is why we campaigned so hard to make it a reality.”
- Emojis aren’t the only improvements in iOS 13.2. The update also includes the start of Deep Fusion photography technology, which uses artificial learning to take the best parts of several photographs and piece them into a single picture. Pretty cool, huh?
- There’s also a privacy improvement. You can opt out of letting Apple store the conversations you have with Siri, if that’s something you worry about. Of course, I don’t think anyone is asking Siri for anything too nuts, so this probably won’t be a big deal to most, but if you’re serious about your personal privacy where technology is concerned, this might be worthwhile.
