217 new emojis are coming to the iPhone next year

Reported by Emojipedia, 217 new emojis will be coming to Apple devices throughout next year. Some of the new additions include new faces, new heart styles, a woman with a beard, and more mixed skin tone options.

The report notes that, because of Unicode 14.0 being pushed back due to the pandemic, the new update, dubbed Emoji 13.1, is relatively small.

This is a relatively minor update from Unicode, having implemented a new schedule as a result of pushing back Unicode 14.0 due to COVID-19. The majority of additions are for mixed skin tone options.

Phones are still just beginning to see support for Emoji 13.0, which includes new additions like faces, anatomically correct hearts, and new flags. These new emojis will be rolling out to devices throughout the end of 2020.

While the bulk of Emoji 13.1 will add support for additional mixed skin tone options, Emoji 14.0 will add more emojis generally. However, due to the pandemic, that release has been pushed back to 2022.

Emojipedia notes that, with this new timeline, consumers should expect a widely varied release window for new emojis between manufacturers, a departure from the old, more reliable timeline.

In past years, Unicode's March release worked well for vendors shipping major OS updates in September-October. This gave approximately six months from Unicode finalizing a release until a major OS update ships to consumers. Under this new timeline, expect a much more varied vendor release window.

With iOS 14, Apple finally added the ability to search Emojis in the Messages app. As the collection of available emojis keeps expanding, this functionality was badly needed to avoid manually digging through hundreds of emojis to find the one you needed. With hundreds more on the way in the next year, the new feature couldn't have come at a better time.