Emojipedia Announced New Emojis in iOS 14.5

Emojipedia reported that 217 new emojis are coming on iOS. They include a heart on fire, an exhaling face, and gender options for people with beards. The new emojis in this release include couples with a mix of skin tones. A total of 200 of the 217 new emojis are there to permit this more inclusive set of couples to be chosen from the emoji keyboard.

Three new smileys are included in the release: Exhaling face, Face with Spiral Eyes, and Face in Clouds. Two heart emojis have been added. Heart on Fire is a red heart with flames. Mending Heart is a red heart with bandages on it.

The most interesting addition to the new emojis is a set that includes people with beards. Emojipedia points out that most emojis provide an option for a gender inclusive default, or a specific gender can be chosen to show an emoji as a woman or a man.

The only one that did not have that option was the emoji for “Person: Beard”. It shows a man with a beard, and there are a variety of skin tones to choose from. The new set of emojis lets people specify that they want the “man with a beard” emoji or the “woman with a beard” emoji. Personally, I think this is fantastic because the new emoji options can be used to represent people who are nonbinary or transgender in a positive, inclusive, way.

There is a change to the syringe emoji, which previously looked like a syringe that had some blood dripping out of it. It will be replaced by a syringe that lacks the blood. The purpose is to enable people to use the new syringe emoji to describe COVID-19 vaccinations.

Emojipedia points out that the emoji designs are subject to change prior to the final release.