Bigfoot, Distorted Face, and Six More New Emoji Are Coming to Your IPhone.
While many iPhone owners have just installed the recent iOS 26.3.1 update , Apple is currently working on a completely different update: iOS 26.4 . This update is currently in beta testing and includes new features and changes, such as AI-powered playlists for Apple Music and end-to-end encryption support for RCS. But Apple’s latest beta of 26.4 includes something new that will likely please most iPhone users: eight new emoji.
These new emoji aren’t necessarily Apple’s creations. Instead, they’re based on the Unicode standard version 17.0, released on September 9, 2025. When the Unicode standard releases new emoji standards, developers are required to create their own images for users. In this case, we see Apple’s interpretations of these new emoji standards. Google, for its part , released its Unicode 17 emoji on the same day the standard was announced.
Here are Apple’s new emoji for iOS 26.4.
This standard includes the following new emoji:
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Distorted Face : A “fisheye” effect where the face appears to have large eyes on the sides of the head, with an overall surprised expression. (I expect to see a lot of these images in conversations and social media posts.)
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Fight Cloud : What you might expect to see over a cartoon fight.
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Ballerina : A dancer who balances on one leg.
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Killer Whale : What you’d expect from a killer whale emoji. (Honestly, I’m surprised this hasn’t been done before.)
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Hairy Creature : Bigfoot, now an emoji.
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Trombone : Trombone.
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Landslide : A large rock that rocks fall on. (I think we could have paid more attention to this.)
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Treasure Chest : A fairly detailed emoji depicting a treasure chest that suddenly opens to reveal a crown, gold coins, rubies, and a pearl necklace.
All eight apples can be seen in the image embedded in the following post from Emojipedia on X:
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Unless Apple decides to push these emoji to iOS 26.5, they will appear in iOS 26.4. There’s no exact release date yet, but given that iOS 18.4 was released on March 31st last year , there’s a good chance we’ll see the new emoji on our iPhones before April.