Apple is including icons for same-sex couples in its new iPhone operating system, iOS 6, which is slated to be released this fall.

Jesus Diaz at Gizmodo has the details:

The new version of Apple’s iPhone operating system comes with new emojis, the popular emoticons that are often used in texting and email, especially by young kids and nerdy adults like me. Two of these new pictograms represent gay and lesbian couples for the first time.

The icons are placed next to the previous relationship-related emojis showing a heterosexual couple holding hands and a heterosexual couple with a son. One shows two men holding hands. The other shows two women in the same position.

John Biggs at TechCrunch adds:

Now this is nice: Apple has updated their Emoji collection to reflect reality. They’ve added a lesbian and homosexual couple to the usual collection of goofy faces, monkeys, and weird skulls.

The new Emoji will appear in iOS 6 but to access the keyboard now in iOS 5 just pop into “Settings>General>Keyboard” and click International Keyboards. Add a new keyboard and select Emoji. Now, when you type, press the globe button near the keyboard and you’ll see a selection of icons for your perusal.

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