Apple has dropped a preview of its new emoji collection. Coming this autumn, the new designs will expand Apple’s current set of emoji, with fun additions to several popular emoji categories. In particular, Apple promises to bring more diversity to your screen with additional skin tones and personalisation options for some of their characters.
There are lots of new symbols to look forward to. If you’re falling asleep at your keyboard, Apple is introducing a new yawning smiley to express just how you feel. Animal lovers will be happy to see brand new characters coming to their keyboards, including a cuddly sloth, a graceful flamingo, an orangutan and a surprisingly friendly skunk. Emoji for favourite pastimes will be added too, with icons for a kite, a yo-yo and even a sky-diver.
The food emoji collection is also getting some new menu items. Apple is serving up a tasty waffle, a stick of butter, a falafel and a bulb of garlic. The garlic will presumably come in handy when confronting some of Apple’s fantasy and mythological figures, which include wizards, fairies and vampires; while these aren’t new, they’ll be given additional skin tone options in the autumn so you can create your perfect magical creature.
Disability representation is another key feature of the updated emoji set. Last year, Apple made a proposal to the Unicode Consortium (the body which oversees the creation and support of new Unicode characters, the special character codes behind emoji). In this proposal, Apple put forward a collection of new emoji to better represent people with disabilities. These emoji will be coming to Apple devices in the autumn. As well as a manual wheelchair emoji, the collection introduces a powered chair and a range of other assistive technology. The emoji set will include a guide dog, a white stick user, a hearing aid and high-tech prosthetic limbs.
The autumn roll-out means that the new emojis will hit Apple devices in time for the start of the school year. That’s good news for anyone who’s planning to take advantage of back-to-school offers on Apple products. You could get up to £900 off the price of a new MacBook when you trade in your old computer or snag a set of Beats headphones when you pick up an iPad for home or school. As well as these deals, Apple is offering a range of student discounts for those heading back to university this year.
Whether you’re going back to school or not, fans of Mac and iOS devices should check out Tech Advisor’s range of Apple voucher codes. With a range of money-saving offers, Apple discount codes give you great deals all year round.