New emoji is coming to Android with new system images including new fonts, keyboard and all new code included as well says Google head of Android, Chrome and Chromecast, Hiroshi Lockheimer.
The update comes on the back of Apple including updated emoji for iOS users in the October release of iOS 9.1. The update will come in the form of system updates, for Nexus owners – Nexus 5, 5X, 6, 6P, 7 (2013), 9 and Player presumably – and very possibly Android One users first with Mr Lockheimer advising in Twitter replies that OEMs will update their devices after being supplied the fonts and technical details as well.
Look! New emoji coming to #Nexus next week. Fonts and tech details shared with OEMs to include in their updates too. pic.twitter.com/GwvKw2d67p
— Hiroshi Lockheimer (@lockheimer) December 3, 2015
Exactly how many of the 250 new emoji announced by the Unicode consortium, the body in charge of maintaining among other things the list of ‘official’ emoji, last year hasn’t been made clear, but we’ll very likely see that middle finger gesture included along with the cute, fat little Android emoji we’ve all come to know and love.
Update: Here’s the new emoji, thanks to an enterprising /r/android redditor:
Whether bug fixes for Marshmallow will be included in the updated system images isn’t clear, but there’s certainly a few to nail down with the Telstra Nexus 6P update likely and hopefully a fix for some car stereo owners experiencing Bluetooth connection issues as well.
Exactly when we’ll see the update hasn’t been announced, but hopefully prior to update Wednesday when a number of Google apps traditionally get an update.
Are you excited for new emoji in Android?
Pity they cant look the same as the iOS ones, they really do look a lot better, especially the faces…the android ones are just…ordinary…
ghey. how about they focus on fixing critical issues in Marshmallow, like the broken bluetooth stack, wifi draining bug etc
I second the hope that this patch will fix a whole heap of stuff under the guise of “oww look dumb @#$! customers at our new emoje”. The sole time I use emoje is when swift key recommends I use one in the predictions.