There have been a couple of interesting additions to WhatsApp over the past few days, with a beta version revealing the long-awaited inclusion of a sticker maker/editor. Not much later, we learned that Android could soon start showing WhatsApp calls in the Google Phone app, something that iOS already does with its stock Phone app. Similarly, the all-new Unicode 15.1 emojis are now visible on WhatsApp for Android’s emoji keyboard, a feature that made its way to iPhones with iOS 17.4 recently.
Unicode 15.1 was first introduced in September last year, and recent WhatsApp beta releases for Android have supported it. However, Unicode 15.1 emojis never appeared on the app’s emoji keyboard, which meant that users couldn’t share them in their conversations. But that’s on course to change now, according to the folks at WABetaInfo, who have spotted the new Unicode 15.1 emojis within the keyboard on WhatsApp beta for Android version 2.24.6.7.
It looks like you can also access these emojis independently of WhatsApp, provided you have Gboard. Our Google Editor, Manuel Vonau, reports seeing the Unicode 15.1 emojis on his Pixel 8 Pro, though I didn’t have the same luck using Gboard on my Pixel 6a. Nevertheless, this is one of those features that will definitely make the cut to the stable release, given that iPhone users can already access them on their stock keyboard with the iOS 17.4 update.
Prominent among the new emojis are phoenix, lime, and even an edible mushroom. Furthermore, there are a couple of variations of the 108 people-based emojis to indicate the direction they’re facing, while a couple of shaking head emojis have also been included to convey common words like yes or no.
If you can’t see these emojis yet, we recommend checking your enrollment status in WhatsApp’s beta program from the app’s Play Store listing. Alternatively, you can sideload this specific version of WhatsApp beta from APKMirror. WhatsApp initially began working on Unicode 15.1 support for Android back in late January, as reported by WABetaInfo at the time, so it’s been in development for nearly two months now.
Maybe if we start telling people the brain is an app they will start using it!
