The majority of Apple Color Emoji designs were updated with the release of iOS 10.2 in December 2016, with many appearing to be 3D-rendered. As a result, the human emoji faces switched to a neutral yellow skin tone by default, similar to the smiley emoji. Īn updated emoji keyboard was released in iOS version 8.3, this update also added varied skin tones and same-gender couples included in Unicode 6. In the years 2011-2018 the Apple Color Emoji font expanded from 471 to 2,776 emoji as of October 2018. For example, 💃 (defined by Unicode as 'dancer' with no specified gender) is feminine on Apple and SoftBank phones but was previously masculine or gender-neutral on others. ĭue to the iPhone originally launching in Japan on the SoftBank network, some Apple emoji designs may have been created to resemble those on SoftBank phones. The designers of the first Apple Color Emoji typeface were Raymond Sepulveda, Angela Guzman and Ollie Wagner. Originally limited to Japanese iPhone models, this restriction was later lifted. The first version of Apple Color Emoji was released alongside iPhone OS 2.2 in November 2008 and contained 471 individual emoji glyphs.