The wacky world of emoji may be getting more diverse, if a new beta versions of Apple’s operating systems are any indication. People who are registered for the company’s iOS and OS X developer programs got access to the latest betas of OS 10.10.3 and iOS 8.3, which each include the ability to choose the skin tone for a number of emoji icons.
Rather than being stuck with a single pale skin tone, users can press and hold on certain icons like the hair-toss emoji and the thumbs-up to get access to a drop-down menu where they can choose from six skin tones. There are also a couple new figures, including a man with a turban. It’s a marked improvement over the current state of affairs: all of the emoji for people on iOS and OS X are white.
The update is based on a change to the Unicode standard for emoji that adds support for modifiers, including those that change skin color.
In addition to the racially diverse lineup, the updates also include a new set of family emoji that includes same-sex couples and up to two kids. That’s a change from the current regime, which only has a single heterosexual couple and one kid.
Apple also added more than 30 new country flags with the update, from locales including Canada, Israel, Australia and New Zealand. The company also sneakily updated the watch emoji to an image of the Apple Watch – hardly surprising since the new high-tech timepiece is slated for release in April and is supposed to require iOS 8.3.
Of course, it’s possible that this may not make it in to the final release of either of these OS updates. This is still a beta, and Apple can totally cut out some or all of these emoji before they make it into the wild. But by including them in this beta release, it seems likely that there’s a more diverse future on the horizon, even if it doesn’t come right away.