iPhone emoji update boasts more diverse messaging icons, features Hong Kong and Macau flags

The latest version of Apple's operating system for iPhone and iPad includes a much-anticipated new emoji keyboard, with a more diverse selection of human icons.

Emojis – small picture icons which are widely used in iMessage, WhatsApp and on Twitter – have long been criticised for only having icons of white people, apart from a small number of non-white icons which draw heavily on ethnic stereotypes.

“Of the more than 800 emojis, the only two resembling people of colour are a guy who looks vaguely Asian and another in a turban,” read a petition on DoSomething.org posted last year which called for more diversity.

The Unicode Consortium, which governs emojis and ensures that they work across platforms and devices, announced in November 2014 that the next edition would include human icons with a diverse selection of skin tones. Following that announcement, Apple promised to introduce the new emoji on desktop and mobile as soon as possible.

“There needs to be more diversity in the emoji character set and we have been working closely with the Unicode Consortium in an effort to update the standard,” Apple’s head of PR Katie Cotton wrote at the time.