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December patch brings Unicode 13.1 emoji to Pixel devices

The recent December 2020 security patch along with the Pixel Feature Drop brought a number of new additions plus all of the new Unicode 13.1 emoji to Made by Google devices.

For avid emoji users (and indeed abusers) when updating your Pixel device, you’ll now have over 200 new combinations in total. Although most are mainly skin tone variations, there are genuinely a small pool of new options that we have previously detailed including:

  • Face in clouds
  • Face exhaling
  • Face with spiral eyes
  • Heart on fire
  • Mending heart
  • Beard
  • Kiss: Woman, man
  • Kiss: Man, man
  • Kiss: Woman, woman
  • Couple with heart: Woman, man
  • Couple with heart: Man, man
  • Couple with heart: Woman, woman

All of these Unicode 13.1 emoji were announced back in September but it’s taken a while for them to come to Android 11. Like the Unicode 12.1 emoji, they have coincided with a Pixel Feature Drop yet again. This could easily be the new method of deployment for emoji moving forward.

If you have already updated to the December 2020 patch on your eligible Pixel device, you should now be able to access all of the Unicode 13.1 emoji when using Gboard. Just don’t expect anyone on older software builds to be able to view them properly.

Let us know your favorite new emoji down in the description below!

More on Android:

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Avatar for Damien Wilde Damien Wilde

Damien is a UK-based video producer for 9to5Google. Find him on Twitter: @iamdamienwilde. Email: damien@9to5mac.com


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