It’s finally here for iOS users – the much talked about, long-awaited middle finger emoji.
Apple’s latest iOS 9.1 update, which is available to download for iPhone and iPad today, includes the middle finger icon. It has been introduced along with 150 other new emoji including a taco, cheese wedge, hot dog, unicorn, and a popping champagne bottle.
The update also allows users to do the Vulcan salute ala Leonard Nimoy. Winning!
According to Daily Mail, these emoji have been a long time coming because the method of adding new emoji is complex. They must first be approved by an organisation called the Unicode Consortium in California responsible for developing Unicode.
The consortium selects candidates from popular or topical requests and candidates are also picked if there are existing gaps in current emoji – for example, Unicode 7.0 had a tiger, but not a lion.
Once the emoji are made available by the consortium, companies including Apple, Google, and Microsoft can then integrate them into their own systems.
Note: Only users who with devices that have been updated to support Unicode 7 and Unicode 8 emoji will be able to see the new characters. Anyone who is running an older version will just see square boxes instead of the emoji.
Aside from a new range of emoji, the roll out of Apple’s iOS 9.1 on Wednesday (21st October) also updated support for Live Photos, added new wallpapers, and tweaked the shift key on the virtual keyboard.
But really, do you care about that when you can now send multi-middle fingers to your unsuspecting friends? Exactly.
To get the latest emojis for your iPhone, go to Settings > General > Software Update and install the latest update.
Sources: Mashable, Daily Mail.
