As promised, Apple has unveiled a collection of multi-ethnic that will become available sometime in the near future. Whereas emojis have generally been neutral in pretty much everything, from race to sexuality, Apple is spicing things up with this new update and will even be bringing families with same-sex parents into the mix. Considering how much Apple prides itself on diversity it’s odd that it took the company four years to roll out this update.
Beware, expressionistic faces of Simpsonesque yellow hue and traditional nuclear families—your emoji dominance of texting is drawing to a close. Apple has unveiled new, diverse sets of emoji representing a variety of ethnicities and family types in the latest beta versions of iOS (for iPhones and iPads) and OS X (for Macs). The change lets you pick new, realistic skin tones for many emoji characters, ranging from dark brown to pasty white, all in addition to traditional crayon-yellow. To change the color of a human representative emoji, just select and hold until the new tones appear. Of course, the diverse emoji aren’t available to the general public yet, although the wait probably won’t be that long. In the meantime, we’re stuck with a turban-wearing young Sikh boy as the only emoji available to represent all people of color. For all Apple’s recent proclamations of diversity, it’s actually taken the company nearly four years to start representing the people who use its products.
