So much of normal life has been delayed because of coronavirus: from Glastonbury to Wimbledon. But it’s not just events that have been impacted by the spread of the virus.
The Unicode Consortium which maintains and regulates emoji has said that the 2021 batch of characters will be delayed by six months as a result of the pandemic.
The Emoji 13.0 batch, the new emoji for this year which were announced earlier in the year, will still be released to smartphones in September. These include a transgender flag and a woman wearing a tuxedo emoji. However, next year’s characters will not follow this schedule.
As the consortium relies on volunteers, it won’t be able to stick to its usual release dates, with the announcement of the next batch of emoji, named Emoji 14.0, due in September 2021 instead of earlier in the year. This means they won’t be available to use on smartphones until at least 2022, as it can often take several months to be implemented by device makers.
Speaking about the change, the Unicode Consortium’s president Mark Davis said: “Under the current circumstances we’ve heard that our contributors have a lot on their plates at the moment and decided it was in the best interests of our volunteers and the organisations that depend on the standard to push out our release date.
“This year we simply cannot commit to the same schedule we’ve adhered to in the past,” he added.”
Jeremy Burge, who runs the Emojipedia reference site, said: “No emojis have been confirmed for Emoji 14.0 as yet, but provisional candidates include crow, cooking pot, finger heart… If any of these make the cut for 14.0 (no guarantees), they won’t come to phones now until 2022, due to the post-Covid release schedule.”
There are other hints of delays in the tech world due to Covid-19. Sources told the Nikkei Asian Review that the 5G iPhone launch could be delayed by months, possibly into 2021, as result of the pandemic’s impact on its supply chain.
Additional reporting by PA
