The Unicode Consortium has officially approved new emoji characters that are set to be added to the iPhone and other smartphones in 2024.
The approved Unicode 15.1 emoji include a phoenix, a lime, an edible mushroom, a shaking head vertically (as in a “yes” nod), a shaking head horizontally (a “no” head shake), and a broken chain.
For 108 people emoji, you can now switch the direction that they are facing (for example, a person walking facing right versus facing left). While there are 108 new directional emoji, most of the count consists of people emoji with multiple skin tones. The emoji expand on some existing emoji, such as a person walking, a person running, a person kneeling, a person with a white cane, a person in a manual wheelchair, and a person in a motorized wheelchair emoji, adding directions like left and right.
Now that the new emoji characters have been approved, we will see Apple, Microsoft, Google, and other device manufacturers add the new emoji via future software updates. Apple usually takes its sweet time before adding the new emoji, so we likely won’t see the Cupertino firm add them to its devices in an iOS 17 update until 2024.