Language is the mirror of society. The spoken one, and even more the written one, which always takes a while to codify the habits of oral communication. But the reverse also works, sometimes.
Thus the news that Apple has entered the schwa in the keyboard of iOS 15, it seems a minor thing, and instead in its own way it is an epochal change. You can invoke gender correctness as long as you want, involve linguists and philosophers of language: if you need acrobatics on the keyboard to find schwa, it is easy to predict that using it will be in pochi o poche. Instead, from Monday, with the update to iOS 15, those who have an iPad or an iPhone will find it under the letter “e”, as any accented e.
There are also new emojis, including faces, hearts, people and couples. The new faces include a face half covered by a cloud, a dizzy face, a blowing face, while between hearts there is one bandaged and one on fire.
With iOS 15, a host of new bearded emojis are also coming, featuring two different male haircuts, both in six different skin tones. There are also eight new couple emojis, available in 25 different variations. Today Apple’s emojis are over 3600; in 2008, when they were first introduced, there were 471. And that’s not all: others are being studied by the international body for the standardization of emojis, including those of a pregnant man.
Apple
It’s the day of iOS 15 and iPadOS: here are all the news
at Antonio Dini
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2 comments
I’m on 15.3.1 and there is no schwa when pressing and holding the “e” key.
I’m on 16.0.3 and there’s still no schwa when I hold down the e key.