Every year, the Unicode Consortium releases an update to the list of emoji for that year, the latest being Unicode 13.0, that was released in January 2020. They have now announced a minor emoji release, called the Unicode 13.1, will be released later this year, as the COVID-19 pandemic has delayed the release of Unicode 14.0.
Since it is only a minor release, Unicode 13.1 will contain very few new emoji. The list includes:
- Face Exhaling
- Mending Heart
- Heart on Fire
- Face with Spiral Eyes
- Face in Clouds.
Along with these new emoji, there will be new gender options and skin tone options for the bearded person emoji too.
Typically, the Unicode Consortium will approve and release a new list of emoji at the start of the year. After this, companies and vendors such as Apple and Google will usually modify some of these emoji and release them on their platforms is the later half of the year.
With Unicode 13.1 expected to release in late 2020, we can expect to see these new emoji arrive sometime early next year, which would be a departure from the usual emoji release schedule. Major vendors like Apple, Google, WhatsApp, Telegram, etc. will have to make changes in their software development to release the emoji in the first half of the year instead of second.