Android Will Support the New Emojis Seen in iOS 9.1, Eventually

The new range of emojis support from Unicode 7 and Unicode 8, which debuted on Apple's mobile operating system with the iOS 9.1 version on Wednesday, would soon be reaching Android devices as well.

Hiroshi Lockheimer, who recently was named as the Senior Vice President of Android, Chrome OS, and Chromecast, confirmed the same on Twitter. "So I have a feeling y'all want new emojis? a) Thanks for the feedback, b) We're on it, and c) Sorry!," he posted on Friday. Unfortunately, Lockheimer did not detail just when the rollout would be. Speculation pegs the release alongside Android 6.1 Marshmallow. If that is indeed the rollout vehicle, the big question is whether most phones will ever receive the update. Hopefully, Google has another rollout vehicle planned.

The Twitter post by Lockheimer may have been a reaction to the popular Reddit thread by Android users asking if "Android have any plans on how to stay on top of this?" For those unaware, iOS 9.1 for iPhone and iPad models features a range of new emoticons including taco, burrito, cheese wedge, middle finger, champagne bottle, unicorn head, and others, some of which we already saw in the iOS 9.1 public beta. The OS version brings a total of 184 new emojis, which span across different segments - animals, weather, flags, objects, hand gestures, sport, places, faith and others. Notably, since Android and iOS now support different Unicode emoji versions, the ones sent by an iOS 9.1 user would not be visible on Android. Unsupported emojis will instead arrive as small boxes with a cross inside them.

As per an Emojipedia blog post, the upcoming Unicode 9.0 version includes additions such as the face palm and nauseated face. The emoji update is scheduled for mid-2016.

Unicode Consortium in June this year released Unicode 8, which included "37 new emojis such as the Face With Rolling Eyes, Hugging Face, Taco, Cheese Wedge and Hockey - both ice and field varieties." The version features five additional emoji modifiers, bringing the total number of emojis to 41.