Apple's Diverse Emojis Have Arrived, But There's A Big Problem

Apple’s new suite of diverse emojis has arrived. That’s good! When you send them to people who don’t yet have them installed, they become offensive again. That’s bad.

As we reported last month, Apple responded to criticism of having mostly white, heterosexual emojis by developing a batch with a variety of skin-colours and in multiple LGBTQI-friendly groupings. There are also more country flags, which is cool too, I suppose.

They can now be yours when you update your iPhone with the newly-released iOS 8.3. (The trick to changing each emoji’s skin colour is to press down on one and open up their new palette).

Good stuff, right?

Right. Except, however, when you send all these wonderful new emojis to a friend who hasn’t yet updated their phone. Then it becomes very awkward.

Here’s a screen-captured conversation we had in the office between two phones, one with iOS 8.3, and one without.

Notice how the emoji of a gay couple appears, to older phones, as two mustachioed men, despite the new emoji being moustache free. Subtle.

Even more curiously, sending any male or female emoji with a skin colour other than will render on an older iOS as a white man or woman alongside… a picture of an alien?

Yay, progress?