Apple's new diverse emoji include black Santa Claus
All 'people' emoticons can now have their ethnicity altered
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.In a bid to make sure absolutely everyone is represented in emoji form, Apple and Unicode have teamed up to make the increasingly popular symbols more racially diverse.
Several beloved emoji including 'thumbs up' and 'girl throwing her hand in a-yeeerrrrrr' have been updated, along with Santa Clause who now comes in six different skin tones.
A lot of thought has clearly gone into it - instead of making the emoji list five times as long, you can now click and hold a picture and then scroll right to change its ethnicity.
The new emoj are being trialled on OS X 10.10.3 and iOS 8.3 beta 2 now, with a tipster sending the new set into The Next Web.
Any 'people' icons can be altered, and the family has also been given a more contemporaneous makeover, now showing kids with gay and lesbian parents.
Most people seem happy with the new symbols, though some are irked by the new default yellow hue.
Aside from race, there are also a bunch more country flags and the watch emoji has been cunningly switched out for an iWatch.
Apple has been working on the new emoji for some time, saying back in March 2014: "There needs to be more diversity in the emoji character set, and we have been working closely with the Unicode Consortium in an effort to update the standard."
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments