iOS 11.1 to Feature Hundreds of New Emojis, Including Gender-Neutral Characters

Hundreds of new emojis, including more smiley faces, gender-neutral characters, new clothing options, and mythical creatures are coming with iOS 11.1’s imminent launch.

According to a press release from Apple, the new emoji will make it to developer and public beta previews of iOS 11.1 next week, followed by public release. Apple hasn’t specified final release date for iOS 11.1 for iOS, macOS and watchOS.

“iOS 11.1 will also include characters announced on World Emoji Day like Woman with Headscarf, Bearded Person, Breastfeeding, Zombie, Person in Lotus Position and new food items such as Sandwich and Coconut,” read the press release. Another addition is the “I Love You” gesture which has been inspired from ‘I love you’ hand sign in American Sign Language.

Of course, Apple doesn’t come up with these ideas itself—they are just the company’s own spin on emojis that are approved by the Unicode Consortium in order to let people send symbols between different communications platforms while retaining their meaning.

The consortium approves the rough images, but companies such as Apple and Google are free to create their own versions of each emoji. Earlier this week WhatsApp unveiled its own range of emojis, which are nearly identical to those created by Apple.

Developer and public betas of the iOS 11.1 update will be pushed out next week, but there’s no word on when the update will be officially released to the public.