WhatsApp user? Big emoji update rolled out! Here is what you will get now

After months of being unable to see special emoji sent by their iPhone toting friends, WhatsApp for Android users will soon be able to see and send iOS 14.5 emoji in an upcoming update.

Due to the latest update, WhatsApp users on Android can see the latest emoji sent by Apple iPhone users that were inaccessible till now. (Emojipedia)

WhatsApp is back in the news again after having rolled out the 'view once' disappearing photo and video feature to its users recently. The messaging app has been working on new features like multi-device support and encrypted backups too. Now, it has been revealed that WhatsApp is adding support for the latest emojis on the beta version of its Android app and that should boost the fun quotient manifold.

According to a report by noted feature leaker website WABetaInfo, the Facebook-owned messaging service is now adding support for the latest emojis. This will enable users on Android to even see the latest emoji their friends, using WhatsApp for Apple iOS, send. Earlier this year, Apple released iOS 14.5, which brought along with it several new emoji, These include a heart on fire, an exhaling face and many more emojis that are part of the approved Emoji 13.1 update. However, this is yet to be officially supported by the Android eco-system and therefore, users were not able to see these emoji.

Notably, after Apple iPhone users updated to iOS 14.5, they were able to send 217 new emoji directly from their keyboard, including through WhatsApp, thanks to the system-wide emoji support. However, the emoji cannot be seen by any Android user, as even the latest version of Android 11 does not include support for these emoji. WhatsApp has now updated its app to display these images correctly on Android too, even if the phone is quite outdated.

📲 iOS 14.5 is out now with these new emojis https://t.co/Z9Tr0ZfMKp pic.twitter.com/ug5S0pwYwq

— Emojipedia (@Emojipedia) April 26, 2021

Earlier in April, we had reported that Apple added support for three major groups of emoji. The first group included a face exhaling (or sighing) a face in the clouds, and a face with spiral eyes. The second group includes two new heart variations - a burning heart emoji and a ‘mending heart' emoji. Finally, the large third group comes with support for lots of diverse new emoji and gender combinations that were all included in the iOS 14.5 version update.

According to the report, if users have updated to beta version 2.21.16.10 of WhatsApp for Android, they will be able to see all the new emoji sent by iOS users. This also means that they should be able to send these emoji from the in-app emoji picker, but not from their emoji keyboard. System-wide support for these emoji should arrive along with Android 12 that is expected to be rolled out by Google next month.