Racially diverse emojis for the newest Apple update, iOS 8.3, are finally here.

The rumors of their arrival first began circulating early last year, but it wasn’t until March of this year that emoji users got their first peek at the nearly 300 new variations to the previously Caucasian-only emojis when iOS 8.3 was released to developers.

Now, when choosing which emoji will best represent a their current feelings, all a texter has to do is hold down the icon of the emoji they’d like to use and five different skin tone variations will pop up for them to choose from.

The Unicode Consortium, who set the international standards for characters and text (including emoji), said in a technical report that the skin tones were created using the Fitzpatrick scale, a recognized standard for dermatology.

Conversely, the default tone has been changed to a bright yellow color, reminiscent of The Simpsons’ characters. According to the same Unicode Consortium report, this color is meant to represent “a more generic (non-human) appearance.”

However, unless users have updated to iOS 8.3, when they receive any of the new racially diverse emojis, the new emoji will be replaced with an older one. In some cases, an alien head in a box is the replacement.

As stated by the release notes on the Apple website, iOS 8.3 includes a multitude of fixes to bugs introduced by the iOS 8 update, added languages to Siri and racially diverse emojis.

Other additions to the update include family emojis that will now come in a range of choices, including mother and father, two mothers and two fathers, a larger selection of country flags, a new Apple Watch emoji and iPhone 6 emojis.

According to diversity officers from the Center for Diversity and Social Justice (CDSJ) this represents a step in the right direction for Apple and other companies like it.

“A long step, that should have been here a long time ago,” said Michelle Cyrus, a diversity officer.

While Cyrus doesn’t often use emojis, she was very excited to see they had become more diverse.

Before the release of iOS 8.3, Whitney had often wished for more diversity in emojis.

“It was really nice to see,” said Katrina Whitney, diversity officer for the CDSJ.

“Because of the work we do, [we] are a little bit more conscious and a little bit more aware of the lack of the diversity within those emojis,” Whitney said. “I don’t know if [the general population] would recognize that as much.”

However, as great as it is to see more options, introducing diversity in any aspect isn’t a simple or easy process.

Griff Tester, sociology  professor, has concerns about the development process for the emojis and the way they could be abused by users.

“The idea of having options, I want to say that’s a good thing,” Tester said. “Where it could be potentially problematic, is if they start representing stereotypes.”

If the decisions are all being made without the input from the groups that the emojis are supposed to represent, then true representation isn’t actually happening Tester said.

The new variations could also be used in a more negative way that Apple didn’t intend.

“I could see this being used where […] if someone wants to make a racist joke, or make a comment that’s stereotypical, they could use that icon,” Tester said. “So it allows for more uses of stereotypes and stuff like that, but that exists without these.”