David Bridges
The highly anticipated iOS 26 update from Apple is on the horizon, and to celebrate the recent World Emoji Day that took place on July 16, the Unicode Consortium has approved an exciting new set of emojis for this upcoming release. This marks a significant moment for users eager to enhance their digital communication with fresh visual expressions.
To give you a bit of background, the Unicode Consortium is a nonprofit organization dedicated to maintaining the Unicode Standard, which is essential for ensuring that text and emojis are displayed consistently across various platforms and devices. It’s important to note that the selection of emojis is not solely decided by companies like Apple or Google, but by the Consortium itself. This time, a total of eight new emojis have been selected for inclusion in Unicode 17.0, expanding the collection available for users.
Here’s a look at the exciting new emoji additions:
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Apple Core
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Ballet Dancers
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Distorted Face
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Fight Cloud
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Hairy Creature
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Trombone
Credit: Unicode Consortium / Emojipedia
Before getting too excited about these new emojis, it’s worth noting that they will likely not be available in the initial rollout of iOS 26. Apple usually takes time to create custom versions of these new emojis, and those unique designs typically become available in subsequent updates. For instance, Unicode 16.0 was finalized on September 10, 2024, just a week before the launch of iOS 18. However, that particular set of emojis did not make their appearance on iPhones until the release of iOS 18.4 in March of that year. Therefore, while the iOS 26 update is approaching, the new emojis are expected to follow a few months after the initial launch.
Daniel Mercer
Brandon Fletcher
