Back in May, we got a glimpse of the next round of emoji coming to our iPhones next year, including a harp, shovel, and a face with bags under its eyes, but the Unicode Consortium is already looking ahead to the following release–and one of them will be very familiar to Apple fans.
The Unicode Emoji Subcommittee has submitted a total of 164 new emojis to the Unicode Technical Committee for version 17, which is expected to be approved next fall. While the bulk of the new emoji simply adds new skin tones to existing designs, there will also be nine brand-new characters to choose from :
- Distorted face
- Cartoon fight cloud
- Ballet dancer
- Apple core
- Orca (killer whale)
- Bigfoot
- Trombone
- Landslide
- Treasure chest
Of note, the distorted face emoji looks very much like the crushed face emoji from Apple’s since-pulled ad for the M4 iPad Pro. Apple faced a torrent of criticism over the ad, which showed numerous creative instruments being crushed in a hydraulic press. The lasting image was an emoji stress ball with its eyes popping out as it was being crushed.
Apple usually releases the new emoji in one of the mid-cycle updates. For example, iOS 17.4 in March introduced several new emoji, including a lime, phoenix, and shaking heads. It’s expected that the next round will arrive in one of the spring iOS 18 updates.
While the list is expected to be approved by September 2025, it’s unlikely that the new emoji will arrive in the first release of iOS 19. Apple needs time to design the emoji in its own style, so expect to see them in 2026, likely in iOS 19.4 or 19.5. But Apple Intelligence’s Genmoji feature, which lets you create personalized AI emoji with simple text prompts, is coming next month in iOS 18.2, so if you really want a trombone emoji you’ll be able to create one soon enough.
Author: Michael Simon, Executive Editor, Macworld
Michael Simon has been covering Apple for more than 20 years. He started covering rumors with Spymac when the iPod was the iWalk, and has owned nearly every iPhone Apple has ever made. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, son, and far too many gadgets.