Earlier this week, people with access to the preview of iOS 9.1 discovered something mysterious hiding out within it: A new emoji that looks like an eye sitting in the middle of a speech bubble.

One of the new emoji, however, a black and white eye in a talk bubble, has been confounding users since it was first spotted in a developer's preview last month. The symbol's purpose is now clear.

When it first appeared in the iOS 9.1 developer preview, no one knew the meaning of this odd eye-in-speech-bubble emoji — not even Jeremy Burge, founder of Emojipedia. A few days after Burge ...

By comparison, the eye in speech bubble emoji has not been suggested or recommended by Unicode, nor have I seen any mention of it prior to this update." In short, Burge — an emoji expert ...

Ever since Apple revealed its list of new emoji back in September, the all-seeing eye has flummoxed sleuths across the Internet. Of all the pictograms Apple chose to introduce, this is the only ...

The emoji's meaning has not yet been revealed, though some speculate it relates to Apple's video messaging feature or FaceTime. In any case, "eye in speech bubble" is set to debut alongside iOS 9.1.