Courtesy of Apple
Thanks to Apple, expressing yourself just got a lot easier. To celebrate #WorldEmojiDay, the tech company announced a new batch of playful mobile characters coming to iOS, macOS and watchOS this fall.
The 60+ characters include a number of icons, which have been long overdue. Along with T. rex, coconut, zombie, and zebra emojis, Apple also unveiled a yoga instructor, an elf, a mind-blown emoji, a bearded man, a sandwich, and a breastfeeding mother. But perhaps the most important and inclusive of the characters is a woman wearing a headscarf, a move that recognizes the diversity of Apple users and promotes tolerance.
The hijab-wearing emoji was inspired by 15-year-old Saudi-German Rayouf Alhumedhi, who sent a seven-page proposal to Unicode Consortium, the governing board and non-profit organization behind the creation of new emojis. The idea won the backing of Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and a graphic artist went on to make the proposed design, which was finally accepted on July 17.
