Apple early on Monday rolled out iOS 8.3 beta to developers, an update which, along with a handful of bug fixes, prominently features the ability for users to select from a more diverse set of emojis.
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Specifically, the iOS emoji lineup now includes same-sex families. What’s more, the iOS 8.3 beta now gives users the ability to modify the skin tone of what were traditionally white emoji characters. With the update, users are now given six options for skin tone color to choose from.
Notably, this isn’t the first time Apple has taken steps to broaden the diversity of iOS emojis. Recall that Apple, back with iOS 6, introduced emojis featuring same-sex couples for the first time.
MacRumors adds that a recently released beta of OS X 10.10.3 also features more diverse emoji options.
There are also several new people emoji that introduce greater diversity. Family emoji now include multiple same sex couples, both with children and without, all with variable skin tone options. Apple first promised to add more diversity to its emoji character set in early 2014, stating at that time that it was working with the Unicode Consortium to add more characters, and it appears the company will be making good on that pledge
In addition to a more diverse lineup of emojis, 9to5Mac is reporting that Siri in the iOS 8.3 beta now supports a number of new languages, including Russian, Danish, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, and English for India.
It’s worth noting that while the iOS 8.3 beta was released today, Apple still hasn’t released a public version of iOS 8.2. As for when that might happen, BGR reported not too long ago that Apple is aiming for a March launch of iOS 8.2, an update which will reportedly include support for Apple Watch pairing.
