The largest emoji release ever made
Unicode 7.0 was published in June 2014 and added around 250 emoji in a single release, a record that still stands. The unicorn ๐ฆ, the middle finger ๐ and dozens of hand gestures, sports and objects all arrived together. Many of these characters came from legacy symbol sets like Webdings and Wingdings, which is why the group is stylistically inconsistent compared with later, more deliberately designed releases.
| Released | |
|---|---|
| New emoji characters | 250 |
| Total including sequences | 250 |
| Emoji in our database | 105 |
Because so much of this set was absorbed from existing symbol fonts rather than designed as emoji, several characters in it still render as monochrome glyphs on some platforms rather than full-colour emoji.
Unicode publishing a standard and your phone drawing the emoji are two separate events, usually months apart. These are the releases that added support.
| Platform | Added in | When |
|---|---|---|
| Apple | iOS 9.1 | October 2015 |
| Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow | December 2015 | |
| Microsoft | Windows 10 | 2015 |
Became a shorthand for rarity, startups and anything whimsical.
Added despite predictable controversy. Several platforms delayed shipping it.
Exasperation. One of the most-used faces in the whole standard.
Keeping quiet, or being told to.
Sarcasm and resigned irony. Its meaning drifted far from the original intent.
Investigation, and looking into something you should not.
Part of a large sport expansion in this release.
Added as a Star Trek reference and used almost entirely as one.
Often used to amplify a point rather than literally to speak.
Sleep and exhaustion.
Surrender, and later the base character for the pride and transgender flag sequences.
One of several religious symbols absorbed from legacy symbol sets.
Unicode 7.0, published in June 2014, with around 250 new characters. No release since has matched it. Much of the set came from pre-existing symbol fonts rather than being designed as emoji, which is why it is visually inconsistent.
Apple did not ship them until iOS 9.1 in October 2015, around sixteen months after publication. Vendor lag was far longer in this era than it is now, and the size of the release meant a great deal of artwork had to be produced.
Characters absorbed from legacy symbol fonts were given text presentation by default. Without a variation selector forcing emoji presentation, some platforms still render them as monochrome glyphs rather than colour emoji.
See what arrived most recently on our newest emoji page, check which characters people are using right now in trending emoji, or dig into the numbers in our emoji statistics.
Approval is only half the story. To see which iOS release actually put these on a phone, and when, see iOS emoji updates.