Today is World Emoji Day, and the organization that decides which new emoji your iPhone gets has announced this year’s latest crop. Here are the new emoji that will be added in an upcoming version of iOS 26.
Have you ever wondered who decides which new emoji get added to your iPhone? It’s not Apple. Instead, it’s the job of the Unicode Consortium.
Every year, the Unicode Consortium accept suggestions for new emoji to approve. After initial submissions, the group votes and decides on the official batch of new emoji that Apple, Google, and other tech companies will adopt.
Out of the 160+ originally being considered, the final eight picks have just been announced.
New emoji for iOS 26 include:
- Apple Core
- Ballet Dancers
- Distorted Face
- Fight Cloud
- Hairy Creature
- Orca
- Trombone
- Treasure Chest
While Apple will ultimately create its own emoji designs before shipping the new set in iOS 26, The Unicode Consortium has published its take too.
The eight new emoji are unlikely to be added in the first version of iOS 26, as Apple usually waits until a point update later in the software cycle.
For example, this year’s new batch arrived in iOS 18.4 this March. It’s not always so late though. iOS 26.1 and iOS 26.2 could bring the new emoji before the year ends.
In the meantime, if you want to create something akin to these upcoming emoji, Genmoji is your next best option.
What do you think of the new set of emoji? Which will you use most often? Let us know in the comments.
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