Apple May Add Reversible Emoji in iOS 12 and macOS 10.14 Next Year

The Unicode Consortium has proposed new guidelines that would allow for reversible emoji. In other words, emojis such as a car or train that currently face to the left or right only would be able to face either direction.

reversible emoji

Reversible emoji mockup via Emojipedia

Apple and other vendors would be able to choose which emoji can be reversible on their devices, if any, according to their preferences.

The guidelines are still a draft that should be finalized by time the next major batch of over 100 new emoji characters are made available for companies like Apple to implement starting in the second half of 2018.

The Unicode Consortium has also introduced a handful of new emoji candidates for the second half of 2018, including a swan, badger, infinity, and pirate flag, according to Jeremy Burge at Emojipedia.org.

Unfortunately, for true emoji aficionados, it looks like "Frowning Pile Of Poo" and two other faces haven't made the cut for the next batch.

Emoji 11.0, proposed earlier this year, currently includes 130 new emoji candidates. Some notable inclusions are faces with red hair, faces with no hair, faces with curly or afro hairstyles, and hot and cold faces.

emoji 11 faces
Other candidates include new superheroes, a firecracker, a fire extinguisher, a test tube, a lacrosse stick with ball, a softball, and a bagel.

emoji 11 objects
The timeline means that iPhones and iPads could support both the new and reversible emoji in iOS 12 or iOS 12.1 around September to November of next year. The new batch should extend to the Mac as well in a future macOS update.

The emoji included in this article are sample images by Emojipedia.org and could vary slightly from Apple's final designs.

Related Forums: iOS 12, macOS Mojave

Popular Stories

Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Leak Reveals All-New Design

Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app. Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
2024 iPhone Boxes Feature

Apple Changes Trade-In Values for iPhones, iPads, Macs, and More

Thursday January 16, 2025 6:45 am PST by
Apple today adjusted estimated trade-in values for select iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch models in the U.S., according to its website. Some values increased, while others decreased. The changes were not too significant, with most values rising or dropping by $5 to $50. We have outlined some examples below: Device New Value Old Value iPhone 15 Pro Max Up to $630 U ...
2024 App Store Awards

Apple Explains Why It Removed TikTok From the App Store in the U.S.

Sunday January 19, 2025 6:58 am PST by
Apple on late Saturday removed TikTok from the App Store in the U.S., and it has now explained why it was required to take this action. Last year, the U.S. passed a law that required Chinese company ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok due to potential national security risks, or else the platform would be banned. That law went into effect today, and companies like Apple and Google...
Generic iOS 18

Everything New in iOS 18.3 Beta 3

Thursday January 16, 2025 12:39 pm PST by
Apple provided the third beta of iOS 18.3 to developers today, and while the betas have so far been light on new features, the third beta makes some major changes to Notification Summaries and also tweaks a few other features. Notification Summary Changes Apple made multiple changes to Notification Summaries in response to complaints about inaccurate summaries of news headlines. For...
iOS 19 Roundup Feature

iOS 19 Rumored to Be Compatible With These iPhones

Saturday January 18, 2025 10:28 am PST by
iOS 19 will not drop support for any iPhone models, according to French website iPhoneSoft.fr. The report cited a source who said iOS 19 will be compatible with any iPhone that can run iOS 18, which would mean the following models: iPhone 16 iPhone 16 Plus iPhone 16 Pro iPhone 16 Pro Max iPhone 15 iPhone 15 Plus iPhone 15 Pro iPhone 15 Pro Max iPhone 14 iPhon...
iPad Pro vs iPhone 17 Air Feature

Here's How Thin the iPhone 17 Air Might Be

Friday January 17, 2025 3:38 pm PST by
For the last several months, we've been hearing rumors about a redesigned version of the iPhone 17 that Apple might call the iPhone 17 "Air," or something along those lines. It's going to replace the iPhone 17 Plus as Apple's fourth iPhone option, and it will be offered alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. We know the iPhone 17 Air is going to be super slim, but...
airtag 4 pack blue

AirTag 2 Launching This Year With These 3 New Features

Sunday January 19, 2025 8:11 am PST by
After a four-year wait, a new AirTag is finally expected to launch in 2025. Below, we recap rumored upgrades for the accessory. A few months ago, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple was aiming to release the AirTag 2 around the middle of 2025. While he did not offer a more specific timeframe, that means the AirTag 2 could be announced by the end of June. The original AirTag was announced...
apple power beats pro 2

Powerbeats Pro 2 Coming Soon: Apple to Announce Them 'Imminently'

Sunday January 19, 2025 8:25 am PST by
In September, Apple said that it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and it appears the wireless earbuds are coming very soon. Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the Powerbeats Pro 2 in regulatory databases last month, Gurman said Apple is...

Top Rated Comments

Blakey. Avatar
93 months ago
Cue rant about Emoji when the developers responsible for all the current bugs have nothing to do with the designing of them.
Score: 38 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ArtOfWarfare Avatar
93 months ago
Please let the middle finger be reversible. Right now I just send two in a row, but they're both the same sided hand so it doesn't look proper (although it could be argued that the gesture itself isn't proper, but that's in another sense of the word.)
Score: 36 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Recognition Avatar
93 months ago
Cue rant about Emoji when the developers responsible for all the current bugs have nothing to do with the designing of them.
Who needs prioritized Bluetooth, when you can get dozens of more unusable emoji's?
I mean, the idea of automatically setting a hierarchy of where Bluetooth goes to for phone calls (1- Phone; 2 - Airpods; 3 - Car Bluetooth) being different from where Bluetooth music is played. I doubt I'm the only one who wants a phone call routed to my Airpods while I'm driving, yet would listen to music in my Car audio system.
No, let's not do that .... more stupid emoji's. How bout some more cat emoji's? Maybe some killer clown emoji's? Certainly they are as useful as 99.5% of the crap emoji's that pollute the keyboard now.
...and there it is! Lol!
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Eagle_Eye Avatar
93 months ago
The first thing an Apple CEO is obligated to do: fire the entire emoji department and hire a new department for developing high end hardware and a better MacOS. Please, quit with the emojis already...
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
enkadrummer88 Avatar
93 months ago
The first thing an Apple CEO is obligated to do: fire the entire emoji department and hire a new department for developing high end hardware and a better MacOS. Please, quit with the emojis already...
Apple isn't in charge of chosing new emojis. That's up to the Unicode Consortium (as stated in the first sentence of the article). Apple is only in charge of making sure their devices can display them properly once they are standard.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JM Avatar
93 months ago
Maybe Apple will create a decent organizing and search method into messages. the orange letters are nice, and the tiny glyphs.... but it's still annoying to try and find that one specific emoji that you know exists, so you're left to swiping endlessly in the hopes you can find it.

How about a search bar like they have for #images?
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)