Her Campus Logo Her Campus Logo
The Lalabagel And Iced Coffee
The Lalabagel And Iced Coffee
Her Campus Media
Culture > News

Apple Added Cream Cheese To Their Bagel Emoji Because They Have Standards

Xandie Kuenning

People feel very strongly about what constitutes a proper bagel – just look at the uproar that occurred in September over Cynthia Nixon’s bagel scandal. Apple also recently got on the wrong side of bagel lovers when they released images of their bagel emoji, which looked more like a cheap, store-bought creation than a true New York bagel. To appease their customers, Apple has already released a makeover of the bagel emoji, part of the beta version of Apple’s iOS 12.1 and not yet released to the public, adding a thick layer of cream cheese and making the baked good fluffier. 

The controversy over Apple’s bagel emoji began after the Philadelphia Cream Cheese brand posted a poll on Twitter about the lack of cream cheese. Around 80 percent of the nearly 12,000 people who chose to vote were in favor of cream cheese. 

Philadelphia also organized a petition with the goal of reaching 30,000 signatures as a way to show Apple and the Unicode Consortium (the non-profit  organization approves all emoji proposals) that “that the current dry, sad bagel emoji is unacceptable and needs to be updated to reflect the real thing—a bagel with a schmear of cream cheese.”

Though the petition has only reached around 1,200 votes, as of this afternoon, Apple took notice and replaced the icon with the updated cream cheese-stuffed version. The news spread fast over Twitter, where there were many different reactions, from questioning the importance Apple placed on bagels as compared to diversity to just laughing about all the work it took to create the updated emoji. 

Now that we know Apple pays attention to users’ feedback, how long do you think it will take to get some Mac n’ Cheese?

Xandie Kuenning is the Career Editor at Her Campus and a graduate of Northeastern University with a Bachelor's in International Affairs and minors in Journalism and Psychology. She is an avid traveler with a goal to join the Travelers' Century Club. When not gallivanting around the world, she can be found reading about fairytales or Eurasian politics, baking up a storm, or watching dangerous amounts of Netflix. Follow her on Instagram @AKing1917 and on Twitter @XKuenning.