Apple has said it wants more ethnic diversity in the basic range of emoji available to text-messaging apps.

It added that it was working the body responsible for deciding the standardised range of graphic symbols that can be added to text messages to achieve this.

At present the list of characters contains dozens of faces of peoplethat appear to be white.

However, only two of the symbols seem to be Asian and none are black.

Since 2010 a basic list has been developed and maintained by the Unicode Consortium - a Silicon Valley-based non-profit organisation made up of major computer firms, software producers, user groups and others.

It does this to ensure that different devices and mobile carriers can share a basic set.

Although some apps offer to boost the number of emoji that a user can send and receive, users risk their friends being unable to view them if they haven't installed the same software.

(BBC)