Trusted Reviews is supported by its audience. If you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a commission. Learn more.

Apple iOS 8.3 arrives with multi-cultural emoji

Apple is rolling out the final release of its iOS 8.3 operating system, finally bringing those racially diverse emoji characters to the masses.

The new emoji, first revealed by the public beta version earlier in February, allow users to select more skin tones beyond the Caucasian-centric characters featured in other releases. There are also more family options to pick from.

Beyond that, there are new icons to represent the Apple Watch, Mac and the updated iPhone models, while Apple is also boosting the array of flags available to its emoji-happy users.

Elsewhere in the release, there’s a boost for those few souls currently able to make use of Apple’s CarPlay platform.

The iOS-centric in-car infotainment system is only available on a few systems, but until now has required a physical connection via a Lightning cable. Now it can hook up wirelessly

Read more: Apple CarPlay – 8 things you can do with Apple’s in-car system

Siri has also been boosted to account for new accents and languages (Russian, Danish, Dutch, Thai, Swedish, Turkish and Portuguese), while her voice has also been tweaked a little bit. The voice-controlled personal assistant is also able to make calls using the iPhone’s speakerphone, rather than having to manually switch to the loud option.

Meanwhile, there are new filtering options for messages, the option to report messages as junk (just like Mail), while iPhone and iPad users can choose to store messages from unknown senders in a different list.

Finally, it’s now possible to adjust app store settings to allow free apps to be downloaded without Touch ID or Apple ID password authentication.

There’s also a laundry list of performance improvements for messages, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, app responsiveness, app launching, Safari tabs, Control Center and much more.

iOS 8.3 for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch can be downloaded now over the air or via iTunes.

Why trust our journalism?

Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.

Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.

author icon

Editorial independence

Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.

author icon

Professional conduct

We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.

Trusted Reviews Logo

Sign up and get the best deals straight to your phone

Skip the hunt - get the latest discounts delivered directly to WhatsApp by signing up to the Trusted deals Whatsapp Channel.

Get Access