INQUISITR.COM / Science & Tech

Black Emojis Have Arrived: New Apple iOS Update’s African-American Emoticons Make Twitter Go Wild [Photos]

By Paula Mooney
Published on: 13:57 PST, Apr 8, 2015

The long-awaited update from Apple means that emojis now have all kinds of skin colors, with black emojis being representative of African-American skin tones, causing a stir on Twitter. As reported by People, the new iOS 8.3 update from Apple includes at least 300 new emojis, and it’s notable that accessing those emoticons with different skin tones means holding down a finger on certain emojis until the user is given the option to select from darker skin shades, if available.

To access the new Apple update, users can select their “Settings” option on their iOS device — be it an iPhone, iPad or iPod — and select the “General” option to find the “Software Update” that allows Apple to check for the iOS 8.3 update to download and install.

The fact that Apple has used the new update to offer more diverse skin tones has made Twitter come alive, with the emoji hashtag offering a diverse amount of reactions to the African-American emojis. Users have noted that none of the family emoticons offer a black families option, but perhaps future software updates will include the option to select African-American skin toned family groupings.

Users first got a peek at the black emojis in February, reports TIME, and the African-American skin toned emoticons have proven quite buzz-worthy upon their launch on April 8. However, though skin tone has dominated the conversation of the diversification of emojis, flag emoticons were also updated in the new software update — with Apple adding flags from 32 countries along with technical gadgets.

As reported by the Inquisitr, the absence of black emojis has been a discussion on the lips of many #TeamApple lovers for quite some time.

Some users have vowed to only use the newly diverse emojis from this moment forward, while others are tweeting about the overabundance of interest in the black emoticons.

[Image via Apple]

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