The release that gave emoji skin tones
Unicode 8.0 was published in June 2015 and changed emoji permanently by introducing the five Fitzpatrick skin-tone modifiers ๐ป๐ผ๐ฝ๐พ๐ฟ. Before this, every person emoji was a single default colour. After it, any people emoji could be rendered in five tones. Nothing added since has altered the standard as fundamentally, including anything in the much larger releases that followed.
| Released | |
|---|---|
| New emoji characters | 41 |
| Total including sequences | 41 |
| Emoji in our database | 37 |
The modifiers work by attaching to an existing character rather than creating new ones, which is why a handful of modifiers could transform hundreds of emoji at once. That mechanism became the template for hair styles, gender variants and mixed-tone couples later on.
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 8.3 | April 2015 |
| Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow | December 2015 | |
| Samsung | TouchWiz (2015 releases) | 2015 |
Fitzpatrick type 1 to 2. Attaches to people emoji rather than standing alone.
Fitzpatrick type 3.
Fitzpatrick type 4.
Fitzpatrick type 5.
Fitzpatrick type 6.
One of the most publicly campaigned-for emoji of its era.
Added alongside the taco after the same campaign.
Proposed separately and added in the same release.
Part of a modest animal expansion.
Thanksgiving, and reliably seasonal in usage data.
Added in response to the sport's absence despite its enormous global following.
Part of a set that broadened religious representation.
Unicode 8.0, published in June 2015, introduced the five Fitzpatrick skin-tone modifiers. Apple shipped support slightly ahead of the formal release, in iOS 8.3 in April 2015. It remains the most significant inclusivity change in emoji history.
They are separate characters that attach to a person emoji to form a sequence. The base emoji plus one modifier produces the toned version. This is why five modifiers were enough to transform hundreds of emoji at once rather than requiring hundreds of new characters.
If a device does not understand the sequence, it falls back to displaying the base emoji and the modifier swatch side by side. It means the receiving software is out of date, not that the message was sent incorrectly.
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.