When the Pixel and Pixel XL were first launched, it was clear that Google were giving these devices much more attention than usual, as they have both launched with Android 7.1. Not one to be accused of favoritism, Android 7.1 is now available as a Developer Preview for select nexus devices as well as the Pixel C. Among the improvements made within Android 7.1 appear to a wide range of new emoji, which tackle gender-equality as well as offering single parents their own emoji as well. While this appears to be a trivial change for a lot of people, emoji are designed for everyone, so making them more inclusive for everyone is certainly something positive for Android overall.
As Emojipedia is covering, Android 7.1 includes almost 600 new emoji, many of which line up with the upcoming Emoji 4.0 Unicode update. The focus with these new emoji is on the inclusion of new professions, as well as updating some already-existing professions to be gender-equal. These new professions include things such as “Technologist” as well as “Pilot”, “Mechanic” and a whole host of others. All of which come with both female and male counterparts, to make the emoji base a hell of a lot more equal in terms of gender. The full list can be found in the Emojipedia source link down below. On top of these additions, there are also a handful of new people emoji being added, such as runners, surfers, weightlifter and secret agent.
Adding to these gender-equal emoji and the new professions is the inclusion of single-parent family emoji. There’s a handful of these, each for families with one boy, one girl and then also a mixture of the two, but only families with one parent and two children are represented here. This is more down to the overall size of an emoji however, rather than this being an oversight on something on Google’s part. These new emoji will no doubt be making their way to other smartphones in the near future, but the majority of people will have to wait for the update to Android 7.1 to see this new selection of emoji.
