If you look forward to that software update late in the year where you get new emoji characters, you"re in for some bad news. There won"t be one next year. Unicode 14.0 has been delayed by six months, so rather than being released in March 2021, the standard will be released in September 2021. As you"d expect, this is due to the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Typically, the standard shows up in the spring, and then software updates roll out in the fall with the new characters. Now, it would seem that we won"t see them until spring 2022. From a blog post:
The Unicode Consortium relies heavily on the efforts of volunteers. “Under the current circumstances we’ve heard that our contributors have a lot on their plates at the moment and decided it was in the best interests of our volunteers and the organizations that depend on the standard to push out our release date,” said Mark Davis, President of the Consortium. “This year we simply can’t commit to the same schedule we’ve adhered to in the past.”
The Emoji Subcommittee of the Unicode Consortium will start accepting proposals for characters on June 15, and it will last until September 1 of this year. The change does not affect that characters that have already been introduced for this year.
Emoji 14.0 won"t arrive un devices until 2022, but until then, you"ll just have to use your words.