Samsung has begun rolling out the latest version of its Android software layer, One UI 6.0. This update introduces a brand new visual style for the vast majority of Samsung's emoji designs, while also debuting support for Unicode's new 2023 emoji recommendations.
Once installed on eligible devices, One UI 6.0 revises the designs of each emoji within the smiley, food, and animal categories. The update also redesigns the majority of the people and gesture emojis as well as several notable symbol emojis, leading to over 2,500 emoji design changes in total.
Prior to the release of One UI 6.0, the most notable update to the Samsung emoji set occurred in February 2018 with the release of Experience 9.0.
The Experience 9.0 update also revised upwards of 2,500 emoji designs, with many of the changes revising previously divergent emoji designs more consistent with those used by other platforms.
One notable example of this was the 🙄 Face with Rolling Eyes emoji, which had previously been shown with a seemingly contented facial expression on Samsung devices.
Despite the number of changes, however, Experience 9.0's design revisions were visually consistent with the cartoon-inspired style used by the Samsung emoji set since its debut on Galaxy S4 devices back in April 2013.
In comparison, One UI 6.0 completely redrawn almost all of the smiley, people, gesture, food, and animal emojis, introducing revised outlines and gradients in what can only be described as a brand-new visual identity for the emoji set.
As well as these considerable emoji design revisions, One UI 6.0 also introduces the new emoji recommendations from Unicode's Emoji 15.1 list, which was officially approved in early September.
🆕 New
One UI 6.0 debuts 118 new emojis from Emoji 15.1. Across these new emojis:
- Six are brand-new emoji concepts,
- Four are new non-gender-specifying family emojis with a silhouette-based design,
- 108 are new direction-specifying versions of six different people emojis.
With this release of One UI 6.0, 2023 becomes the second year in a row that Samsung has become the first major emoji vendor to introduce Unicode's latest emoji recommendations directly to their devices.
Prior to 2022, Samsung users were often left waiting up to a year before Unicode recommendations would be implemented within their device's native emoji design set.
Amongst the six brand-new emoji concepts, two are within the Smileys category: a 🙂↔️ Head Shaking Horizontally and a 🙂↕️ Head Shaking Vertically.
There are also two new additions to the Food & Drink category: a 🍋🟩 Lime and a🍄🟫 Brown Mushroom.
The 🍋🟩 Lime has been a popular emoji request for several years and has been represented by Samsung as a single sliced wedge instead of the full-bodied fruit, in contrast to the long-standing 🍋 Lemon emoji.
Additionally, the color-specifying 🍄🟫 Brown Mushroom is a common ingredient in many global foods, in contrast to the existing 🍄 Mushroom emoji with its red color and white spots.
The last of the two totally new concepts are a 🐦🔥 Phoenix and a 🔗💥 Broken Chain.
As per Unicode's recommendations, Samsung's designs for four new family-based emojis are silhouette-based.
- 🧑🧑🧒 Family: Adult, Adult, Child
- 🧑🧒🧒 Family: Adult, Child, Child
- 🧑🧒 Family: Adult, Child
- 🧑🧑🧒🧒 Family: Adult, Adult, Child, Child
The six people emoji characters that now have direction-specifying variations are:
- 🚶➡️ Person Walking Facing Right
- 🏃➡️ Person Running Facing Right
- 🧎➡️ Person Kneeling Facing Right
- 🧑🦯➡️ Person with White Cane Facing Right
- 🧑🦽➡️ Person in Manual Wheelchair Facing Right
- 🧑🦼➡️ Person in Motorized Wheelchair Facing Right
Each of these supports all three emoji gender options as well as the five skin tone modifier options, bringing their total to 108.
As well as support for Emoji 15.1, the One UI 6.0 update also introduces support for a selection of various 🧑🤝🧑 People Holding Hands emoji combinations originally recommended by Unicode via late 2019's Emoji 12.1.
➕ Why am I seeing two or more emojis?
Samsung users who are unable to update to One UI 6.0 as of yet will not be able to view the new emojis described bas a single emoji design.
Instead, they will be displayed as multiple emoji designs placed in a row. For example, the 🐦🔥 Phoenix will appear as the 🐦Bird and 🔥Fire emojis placed side-by-side, while the 🍋🟩 Lime will show as a 🟩Green Square placed after the 🍋Lemon emoji.
This is because like with 2019's Emoji 12.1 and 2020's Emoji 13.1, each of the new emojis from Emoji 15.1 are constructed via zero-width joiner (ZWJ) sequences - sequences that use previously-existing emojis to render a new emoji design on eligible devices.
🆙 Change Highlights
Below are some of the most notable emoji design revisions within the One UI 6.0 update.
💩 Pile of Poo is now staring forward instead.
💃 Woman Dancing has a new pose and is no longer wearing an accessory in her hair.
🧑💻 Technologist now has their 💻 Laptop facing directly forward.
👍 Thumbs Up is no longer displayed isometrically.
🐮 Cow Face is now black and white instead of brown.
🧃 Beverage Box contains apple juice instead of orange juice, now matching the Apple and Microsoft designs.
🍜 Steaming Bowl now includes additional ingredients, including an 🥚 Egg.
💮 White Flower now features ornamental dots once more, as did between 2019 and 2021.
📶 Release
The rollout of Samsung's One UI 6.0 update has begun today for the Galaxy S23, S23+, and S23 Ultra devices in select regions.
The following additional devices were eligible for the One UI 6.0 beta program, and are expected to be able to download the update over the next number of weeks and months, though rollout will vary by device and region.
- Samsung Galaxy A54 5G
- Samsung Galaxy A53
- Samsung Galaxy A52
- Samsung Galaxy A34 5G
- Samsung Galaxy A23
- Samsung Galaxy M23 5G
- Samsung Galaxy S22 (South Korea only)
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5
- Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5