Apple Color Emoji: The First Color Font Included in a Computer Operating System

In 2011 Apple included the Apple Color Emoji in Mac OS X Lion. This was the first time a computer operating system included a color font.

"Of even more significance is the fact that the glyphs included in the font are Unicode encoded. In an effort initiated by Google and with significant help from Apple and Microsoft, 722 Emoji symbols were included in the recently published Unicode 6.0 standard, putting Emoji on par with the Latin alphabet and other writing systems encoded in Unicode. This means messages and documents containing Emoji are fully searchable and indexable, and Unicode Emoji fonts are included with Windows Phone 7.5 and the Windows 8 Developer Preview. The encoding effort was not without controversy, but effectively legitimizes nontraditional forms of written expression, and opens the door for the encoding of other symbols, including those found in popular symbol encoded fonts like Wingdings and Webdings" (http://typographica.org/typeface-reviews/apple-color-emoji, accessed 08-22-2013).