In their latest iOS 17.4 update, Apple removed the family emoji that’ve been around for over a decade. Replacing them with these simplistic icons that many find unappealing. So why did Apple do this?

Well, it was the result of a process that began in 2015. When the unicode consortium, an organization responsible for creating industry standards for emoji, decided to make the characters more inclusive. Instead of only being yellow, they recommended emoji also include five skin tone options.