Unicode

Read Cult of Mac’s latest posts on Unicode:

2021’s most popular emoji will leave you crying with joy

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2021’s most popular emoji will have you crying with joy
The two most used emoji are way ahead by a wide margin.
Graphic: Unicode Consortium

People like to laugh. And that leads to Tears of Joy accounting for over 5% of all emoji use in 2021. We also love to love. That put the heart in second place.

The Unicode Consortium compiled a list of all the most popular emoji for the year. And also shared data on the different types of emoji that get used the most.

How to use the Mac’s secret emoji panel

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emoji text replacements
The Mac's emoji panel is even better than the iOS emoji keyboard.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Finding emoji on the iPhone and iPad is easy — you just tap the little emoji key in the corner of your keyboard, and there they are. Emoji are fully supported on the Mac, too, but where do you find them? If you don’t already know, then this trick is going to blow your mind, because it’s just as easy to get to the emoji panel on the Mac as it is on the iPhone.

‘Black dot of death’ Unicode bug crashes iOS Messages app

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Black dot of death
This text message will crash your iPhone.
Photo: EverythingApplePro

Another Unicode text bug has been discovered in iOS, which will repeatedly crash Apple’s Messages app by overloading its memory.

The “black dot” message contains an emoji like ⚫, although it’s not actually the emoji which causes the message to crash the app. The bug affects iOS 11.3 and the current iOS 11.4 beta seeds. A similar message recently did the rounds on Android. As of yet, Apple has yet to release a fix.

Apple wants to bring these accessibility emoji to iOS

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Apple accessibility emoji
Apple's new emoji suggestions, designed to better represent those with a disability
Photo: Apple

Apple has proposed a bunch of new accessibility emoji that it wants to bring to iOS.

There are nine altogether — some of which are available in different genders and skin tones — including guide dogs, a heading aid, prosthetic limbs, and more.

This app can type every Unicode character ever on your iPhone

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Unichar works everywhere
A great new Unicode app.
Photo: Jordan Hipwell

On the Mac, you can type any character available in there Unicode standard, just by opening up the Emoji & Symbols viewer (Control-Command-Space) and picking the one you want. The selection on iOS is much more limited. Even finding an ellipsis is such an odyssey I can never remember whether it’s available or not. But UniChar changes that. It’s a Universal iOS app that brings every single Unicode character to your device.

Yay? Frowning poop emoji and more possibly on their way to iOS

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Proposed new emojis for 2018
How did you converse with people prior to the existence of the above emojis?
Photo: Emojipedia

Do you find yourself at a loss in conversations due to the nonexistence of a smiling or frowning poop emoji to get your point across? Feel that your conversations about great punk albums just don’t work without a picture of a safety pin to illustrate them?

Have no fear: Unicode is on the case with 67 new proposed emojis!

Apple wants an astronaut emoji (among other things)

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Get ready for even more emoji.
Get ready for even more emoji.
Photo: Apple

Astronauts and pilots are set to get their own emoji characters if Apple has its way.

The iPhone-maker recently submitted a request to the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee to add five more professions (artist, astronaut, firefighter, judge, and pilot) to the Emoji 4.0 update that is set to bring support for gendered emoji, a rainbow flag, and more.

Take a look at Apple’s proposed designs:

Apple is taking away your rifle (emoji)

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The rifle won't be made into an emoji.
The rifle won't be made into an emoji.
Photo: Andrew Stawarz/Flickr

Getting your hands on a rifle emoji is about to get a lot harder for all smartphone owners thanks to Apple.

The Unicode Consortium proposed earlier this year to add a rifle emoji as part of the Unicode 9.0 release this year, but according to a new report, the controversial firearm won’t make the cut after Apple campaigned internally to have it removed.

Face palm, bacon, water polo and 71 other emoji may be coming to iOS 10

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Some of the new emoji in Unicode 9.0.
Some of the new emoji in Unicode 9.0.
Photo: Emojipedia

iOS 10 may come with a big batch of new emoji, including pictograms for things like shrimp, croissant, owl, wrestlers, a bunch of hand gestures, a shrug emoticon and more.

The Unicode Consortium has recently accepted the updated Unicode 9 emoji set that contains as many as 74 new emoji that companies like Apple and Google will be able to add to their software keyboards. The consortium will make a final determination on which emojis to add later this year, with the release of Unicode 9.0 set for June 2016. That’s pretty good timing for Apple which is expected to unveil iOS 10 at WWDC in June, with a public launch scheduled for the fall.

Here’s the full list of new emoji:

Apple publishes official workaround for Messages bug

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Unicode of Death 2015
Apple has offered a workaround for people who receive messages like this.
Screen: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac

Chances are you’ve heard about the iOS bug that lets users send a string of text to another iPhone owner that causes their Messages app to crash and their iPhone to reboot.

Although Apple has yet to fix the Messages bug with a software update, it has published an official support document containing a temporary workaround for solving the problem.