Today Samsung has begun shipping its new Galaxy Note 10 device, featuring an emoji keyboard with yawning face, white heart, pinching hand and other new emoji designs.

A selection of the new emoji designs featured in Samsung One UI 1.5.

A total of 215 new emojis have been introduced in Samsung One UI 1.5, a new software update featured on the Galaxy Note 10^[1]. Other eligible Samsung devices are expected to be offered a Samsung One UI 1.5 update over the coming weeks and months. Each of the new emojis originate from Unicode's recent Emoji 12.0 release^[2].

Samsung One UI 1.5, shows most new emojis on the emoji keyboard, with a few exceptions this time around.

While accessing new emojis on the emoji keyboard might be considered a standard feature, this cannot be taken for granted on Samsung devices: last year's Samsung Experience 9.5 introduced support for new emojis but didn't include any way to input them on the default emoji keyboard.

Above: The emoji keyboard on Galaxy Note 10, featuring various new 👭 Women Holding Hands designs. Photo: Jeremy Burge / Emojipedia.

🆕 New

As noted in previous changelogs, while Emoji 12.0 features new emojis across all categories, there are three major themes within this emoji update: people holding hands with various skin tone options, an expanded selection of colorful shapes (including hearts), and an expanded suite of accessibility options.

A number of new emojis are displayed with a gender-neutral appearance when no gender is defined.^[3]

The new 🧏 Deaf Person emoji has a unique design instead of emulating the either 🧏‍♂️ Deaf Man or 🧏‍♀️ Deaf Woman^[4].

Such emulation has historically been the design convention for most non-gender-specific Samsung designs, including 👮 Police Officer (which displays as 👮‍♂️ Man Police Officer), 🧛 Vampire (displays as 🧛‍♀️ Woman Vampire), and 💆 Person Getting Massage (displays as 💆‍♀️ Woman Getting Massage).

Despite the introduction of some new gender neutral designs (and Google's impending redesigns of non-gender-specifying emojis) Samsung One UI 1.5 continues to display previously implemented people as a gender-specific equivalent.

Above: the 👩 Woman, gender-neutral and 👨 Man versions of 🧏 Deaf Person, 🧍 Person Standing, 👮 Police Officer, and 💆 Person Getting Massage as they appear in Samsung One UI 1.5.

People Holding Hands

71 new emojis in Samsung One UI 1.5 show two people holding hands, most of which involved the use of two different skin tone modifiers.^[2:1]

These new designs are created using ZWJ Sequence combinations of 👨 Man and 👩 Woman emojis, or two non-gender-specific 🧑 Person emojis.^[5]

All of the various gender-neutral 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 People Holding Hands combinations feature both individuals clad in green, akin to the new gender-neutral 🧍 Person Standing and 🧎 Person Kneeling designs. However, in the versions of 👬 Men Holding Hands the second man is also glad in green despite having a specified gender identity.^[5:1]

Colored Shapes

There are 14 new shape emojis introduced in Samsung One UI 1.5, meaning that emoji hearts, circles and squares are now all available on Samsung devices in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, black and brown.

• 🤎 Brown Heart
• 🤍 White Heart
• 🟠 Orange Circle
• 🟡 Yellow Circle
• 🟢 Green Circle
• 🟣 Purple Circle
• 🟤 Brown Circle
• 🟥 Red Square
• 🟧 Orange Square
• 🟨 Yellow Square
• 🟩 Green Square
• 🟦 Blue Square
• 🟪 Purple Square
• 🟫 Brown Square

Accessibility

The new accessibility emojis in Samsung One UI 1.5 are as follows:

• 🦻 Ear With Hearing Aid
• 🦾 Mechanical Arm
• 🦿 Mechanical Leg
• 🦼 Motorized Wheelchair
• 🦽 Manual Wheelchair
• 🦯 Probing Cane
• 🧏 Deaf Person
• 🧏‍♂️ Deaf Man
• 🧏‍♀️ Deaf Woman
• 👨‍🦯 Man With Probing Cane
• 👩‍🦯 Woman With Probing Cane
• 👨‍🦼 Man in Motorized Wheelchair
• 👨‍🦽 Man in Manual Wheelchair
• 👩‍🦼 Woman in Motorized Wheelchair
• 👩‍🦽 Woman in Manual Wheelchair

There are also two accessibility-orientated emojis within the animal category: 🦮 Guide Dog and 🐕‍🦺 Service Dog. They join 🦩 Flamingo and 🦨 Skunk, amongst others.

Above: the eight new animal emoji designs as they appear in Samsung One UI 1.5.

• 🦮 Guide Dog
• 🐕‍🦺 Service Dog
• 🦧 Orangutan
• 🦥 Sloth
• 🦦 Otter
• 🦨 Skunk
• 🦩 Flamingo
• 🦪 Oyster

The popular food and drink category has also had eight new emojis introduced, such as 🧆 Falafel and 🧊 Ice Cube.

Above: the new Emoji 12.0 food and drink emojis in Samsung One UI 1.5.

• 🧄 Garlic
• 🧅 Onion
• 🧇 Waffle
• 🧆 Falafel
• 🧈 Butter
• 🧃 Beverage Box
• 🧉 Maté
• 🧊 Ice Cube

Further new emojis introduced in Samsung One UI 1.5 include 🛕 Hindu Temple, 🪂 Parachute, 🥻 Sari, 🩰 Ballet Shoes, and 🩸 Drop of Blood. The full list of new designs can be viewed here.

🆙 Changed

A total of 53 previously-released emoji designs have been changed in Samsung One UI 1.5, with several noteworthy changes detailed below.

👯 People With Bunny Ears now displays two women clad in black dresses and bunny ears, as opposed to a single woman wearing white bunny ears. This change brings Samsung's designs of this emoji in line with that of other major vendors, removing an long-standing instance of design fragmentation.^[6]

🦍 Gorilla now displays as the full ape instead of just its head.^[7]

🐓 Rooster now features brown feathers and large green tail plumage.

🧴 Lotion Bottle is now cream-colored with a pump dispenser.

🇨🇷 Flag of Costa Rica had removed the national coat of arms.

🇳🇵 Flag of Nepal is now its correct double-pennon shape.

🇵🇪 Flag of Peru now longer features Peru's coat of arms, as per the design of all other major vendors.

⏸ Unchanged

Despite the changes listed above, Samsung emoji update has come without Samsung addressing one of its most persistent but least visible instances of emoji design fragmentation.

In Samsung One UI 1.5, the 🇺 Regional Indicator Symbol Letter U emoji continues to display a capital "V" (instead of U), while the 🇻 Regional Indicator Symbol Letter V emoji continues display a "U" (instead of V).

Above: 🇺 Regional Indicator Symbol Letter U (top) and 🇻 Regional Indicator Symbol Letter V (bottom) as they are displayed across a series of major vendors' emoji sets.

Additionally, the 👁️‍🗨️ Eye in Speech Bubble emoji remains absent in Samsung One UI 1.5, having been removed from Samsung's emoji set in 2018.

📶 Release

The Galaxy Note 10 is the first Samsung device to be shipped with Samsung One UI 1.5 out of the box.

As with previous Samsung updates, it is expected that Samsung One UI 1.5 will be slowly rolled out to additional Samsung devices over the next weeks and months, with its availability will vary by location, device and mobile phone carrier. However, many Samsung devices may not ever receive the Samsung One UI 1.5 update.

Users are advised to get in touch with Samsung or their carrier to see if or when they plan to support this update on their own device.

• Browse every Samsung emoji
• New emoji in Samsung One UI 1.5
• Emoji changed in Samsung One UI 1.5
• The Samsung One UI 1.0 emoji changelog