Is the ‘Red Head’ Emoji Finally Coming to iOS? Unicode Consortium Will Meet With Apple Next Week to Discuss the Possibility

Whether it was called in the spirit of biological diversity, or simply as a resolution to satisfy the many user requests, Apple will reportedly be meeting next week with members of the Unicode Consortium’s Technical Committee to discuss whether or not to incorporate an emoji variation boasting red-colored hair into a future update.

Read-headed emoji variants, according to the Unicode Consortium, have become an increasingly popular feature request in recent months. The group who is chiefly responsible for creating and publishing the ‘Emojipedia’ emoticon library, as we know it, announced its meeting with Apple just last week. The group’s Technical Committee, in particular, has already begun drafting up a list of ideas and proposals — complete with suggestions on how it can best implement the red-headed Emoji into the existing library of emoticons. The firms will supposedly use these proposals as a “jump-off point” from which to decide how to proceed.

Though merely a document from which to springboard ideas, the list outlines a number of ways in which the red-head can be incorporated. The first, and perhaps most obvious option, would be to create and implement an entirely new “person with red hair” emoji, altogether. Another idea, as outlined in the document, would be to create new skin tone and hair color modifiers, a so-called “tag mechanism,” by which one would be able to change skin color and hair tone at their discretion, in accordance with a zero-width joiner (ZWJ) option. ZWJ, according to AppleInsider, is essentially a sequence of letters that, when entered, can be used to modify or join any existing combination of emojis, such as “man” and “red hair,” for instance, to create an entirely new one.

Of course, as the Unicode Consortium was quick to note, the inclusion of a red-deeded emoji is not a guarantee at this point, but will merely be discussed as a possibility for the future next week. The group has thus far finished most of its work on the Unicode 10 update that will be released sometime later this year. However, what’s interesting to consider is that red-haired people only make up between one and two percent of the overall population. So while the red-head may very well be a hot ticket request among “many users”, the Unicode Consortium could potentially scrap the plans at Apple’s behest, altogether, if the work involved to make it happen is too big of a burden to bear. Essentially, that is what we’re waiting to hear at this point.

In either case, there’s already a slew of new emojis coming to iOS 11 later on this year, which will be unveiled, and released to the public, shortly after Unicode 10 goes live.

Would you care if a red-head emoji was introduced or not? Let us know in the comments!