The Unicode Consortium today published the list of proposed emoji that could potentially be included in Unicode 10, set to be released in 2017, giving us a first glimpse at the emojis we might see included in future iOS updates.
Today's proposal includes 51 emoji candidates [PDF], including flying saucer, shocked face with exploding head, face with open mouth vomiting, grinning face with star eyes, coconut, broccoli, pie, pretzel, sandwich, t-rex, giraffe face, sauropod (basically a brontosaurus), hedgehog, mage, vampire, fairy, elf, genie, zombie, and tons more.
Emoji candidates are often chosen for multiple reasons, ranging from expected high frequency of use to requests from online communities. Others fill in gaps in existing emoji sets or are compatible with current emoji characters.
The Unicode 10 emoji candidates are not yet finalized, so it is possible some of the characters on the list could be eliminated. We may also see new emoji additions before Unicode 10 is finalized in 2017.
With emoji growing in popularity, Apple has started adopting new emojis more frequently. iOS 10.2 includes support for Unicode 9 emoji, introducing characters like clown face, drooling face, selfie, face palm, fox face, avocado, bacon, and croissant, along with dozens of profession emoji.
Unicode 9 was first approved in June of 2016, so we can perhaps expect to see Apple adopt Unicode 10 within six months of its release.
