Unicode releases beta for Emoji 12.0 candidates
Unicode are giving vendors and developers a preview into Emoji 12.0 with a beta test.
Unicode have opened up a beta for the Emoji 12.0 draft candidates expected next year.
Announced in a blog post, there are a total of 236 draft emoji candidates within the beta test. This is comprised of 61 characters and over 170 new sequences.
Unicode state in the post that the new emojis are scheduled for release in 2019 alongside Unicode Version 12.0.
Among the new emoji are 3 new smiley faces, over 200 new people emoji, 7 animal/nature related symbols and 15 new objects. There are also new food items including the waffle, butter and the mate emoji.
The Emoji 12.0 draft candidates include Apple's new accessibility emojis. This includes emoji for wheelchairs, mechanical limbs and emojis to represent hearing problems. Also featured are the Tinder inspired interracial emojis.
There are over 50 new combinations of multi-person emojis holding hands which now support mixed skin tone variations. This means a dark skin tone emoji person can now hold hands with a light skin tone person.
Family and multi emoji groups also now support skin tone variations. Vendors have also been given the option to support mixed skin tone variations within these family groups. During the proposal stage, it was suggested that vendors could face user interface issues when combining people groups and skin tone variants.
Included in the beta are also a new range of shapes like coloured hearts, circles and even squares.
The finalised list of Emoji 12.0 candidates will be confirmed at the next UTC meeting, which is scheduled for January 2019. After which, work should begin on Emoji 13.0 symbols; a draft candidate list for the 2020 list is already being populated.
