Apple announces emoji featuring a range of same-sex couples and families

Apple has unveiled a range of new emoji which include same-sex couples and families, and a number of different skin tones.

The new emoji will be added to its OS X desktop operating system, reports DigitalSpy.

A proposal for the diversification of emoji was announced last year by the Unicode Consortium, a body which develops software standards.

While emoji featuring same-sex couples and racially diverse characters were limited to only a handful previously, the update, when released, will include 300 new symbols.

As well as same-sex couples, among the additions will be families with two fathers or two mothers.

The pre-release of OS X 10.10.3 is currently being tested, and will be released for the public after debugging.

Last year a US-based designer noticed important images missing from the average smartphone library, and created a range of lesbian-themed emojis.

Back in 2012, Apple introduced same-sex couple related emoji for the first time in a version of its iPhone and iPad operating system, iOS 6.

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