Apple released iOS 26 on Sept. 15, and while the update didn’t include any new emoji, a future iOS 26 update will bring eight new emoji to your iPhone. The Unicode Consortium approved eight emoji in September as part of Unicode 17.0. That means iPhones and Android devices will get these emoji sometime next spring.
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Here are the eight new emoji you can expect to see later this year and on your device next year.
- Trombone
- Treasure chest
- Distorted face
- Hairy creature (Sasquatch)
- Fight cloud
- Orca
- Ballet dancers
- Landslide
“These new emoji have long-standing symbolic meanings, are visually distinctive and contain multitudes of expression,” the Unicode Consortium wrote online in July.
These emoji were proposed in November 2024, and an apple core emoji was also proposed at the time. However, according to Emojipedia, the apple core emoji was withdrawn from consideration before Unicode could approve it.
In 2024, the Unicode Consortium debuted new emoji in September 2024, including the face with bags under eyes and the splatter emoji. You can find those emoji now on your Android and iPhone devices, as well as across the internet.
Correction, July 18: An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed the number of emoji that had been approved for the Unicode 17.0 update. Unicode has since confirmed that nine emoji have been approved, including the Landslide emoji.
For more on emoji, here’s all the emoji award winners for 2025, the favorite emoji among the CNET staff and how to decipher every emoji.
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