Last May we got a sneak peek at the next set of emojis coming to our iPhones next year, including a harp, a shovel, and a face with bags under its eyes, but the Unicode Consortium is already looking forward to it the next version – and one of them will be very familiar to Apple fans.
The Unicode Emoji Subcommittee has submitted a total of 164 new emoji to the Unicode Technical Committee for version 17, which is expected to be approved next fall. While the bulk of the new emoji simply add new skin tones to existing designs, you’ll also have nine new characters to choose from:
- Distorted face
- Cartoon fighting cloud
- Ballet dancer
- Apple core
- Orca (killer whale)
- Big foot
- Trombone
- Landslide
- Treasure Chest
It’s worth noting that the distorted face emoji looks a lot like the squashed face emoji from Apple’s since-pulled ad for the M4 iPad Pro. Apple faced a torrent of criticism over the ad, which showed many creative instruments being crushed in a hydraulic press. The lasting image was an emoji stress ball with its eyes popping out as it was crushed.
Apple usually releases the new emoji in one of the mid-cycle updates. For example, iOS 17.4 introduced several new emoji in March, including a lime, a phoenix, and a nod. The next cycle is expected to arrive in one of the iOS 18 spring updates.
Even though the list is expected to be approved by September 2025, the new emoji are unlikely to arrive in the first version of iOS 19. Apple needs time to design the emoji in its own style, so expect see them in 2026, probably in 2026. iOS 19.4 or 19.5. But Apple Intelligence’s Genmoji feature, which lets you create custom AI emoji with simple text prompts, is coming next month in iOS 18.2, so if you really want a paperclip emoji, you’ll be able to create one soon enough.
