The Unicode Consortium is the group that organizes and defines new Unicode characters and emoji, and at least once a year, it releases an update that defines which new emoji should be implemented on all platforms. Now, Unicode 15.1 is adding a few more emoji, which should arrive on your PC and mobile devices at some point in the future.
The Unicode Consortium has officially approved Unicode 15.1 and Emoji 15.1, which include a new set of 118 emoji that will soon be available on digital devices. Emoji 15.1 introduces six entirely new emoji concepts, including emoji for horizontal and vertical head shaking, a phoenix, a lime, a brown mushroom, and a broken chain. Additionally, there are four new gender-neutral family emoji combinations, letting you represent more family structures. There are also 108 new direction-specific versions of six existing people emoji, such as walking, running, kneeling, and wheelchair users facing right. These new direction-specific people emoji come with their usual set of genders and skin tones, which adds up to that 108 total.
Interestingly, Emoji 15.1 is unique because it doesn’t introduce any entirely new emoji characters, unlike previous updates. Instead, it focuses on expanding emoji options through zero-width joiner (ZWJ) sequences, meaning they are formed by combining existing emoji characters or sequences to create unique emoji designs. For example, the Phoenix emoji is a ZWJ sequence combining the bird and fire emoji. This method allows for a more extensive range of emoji without introducing entirely new characters. As a result of this, you could say that this update doesn’t really bring any fully new emoji, as all emoji in this update are made with these ZWJ sequences. Many of the emoji you use on a daily basis are a result of these sequences, such as all flag emoji, so this is just becoming an increasingly common method of putting them together.
Apple users can expect to get the new emoji in a future minor update to iOS 17 on all iPhones compatible with the OS, including the new iPhone 15 range. They should also appear in a future Android update, likely after Android 14.
Source: Emojipedia
