With iOS 26 not only new functions come to your iPhone, more emoji will also come to your keyboard. These are the eight new pictures!
iOS 26 Emoji
This year Apple is bringing major changes to your iPhone with iOS 26. The operating system will receive a new interface, with Apple Liquid Glass introducing on the iPhone. Almost all Apple applications receive a custom layout with Liquid Glass. That’s not all, because iOS 26 brings a series of new emoji to the iPhone. Apple traditionally also introduces new emoji with every software version.
That is no different at iOS 26, with the new generation of the operating system, eight new emoji come to your iPhone. This new picture has since been revealed on Thursday, July 17, because that day was the official world emoji day. To celebrate this day, new emoji are presented every year. Are you curious about which pictures will come to your iPhone? These are the eight new emoji of the year:
New pictures
With iOS 26, the eight emoji above come to your iPhone, iPad and Mac (book). The new pictures are a trombone, treasure chest, distorted face, core of an apple, fighting cloud, ballet dancer, bigfoot and an orca. This emoji is still missing on your smartphone, but will be added later. Unicode has now shared the first design, developers from Apple are going to work with a different design that fits in with its own operating system.
The emoji on the images are therefore adjusted before they come to the iPhone with iOS 26. Apple developers usually need a few months to redesign the pictures. It is expected that the new emoji will not come to the iPhone, iPad and Mac (book) until the spring. That probably happens with iOS 26.4, which update appears in March or April.
Release of iOS 18.4
Apple brings new emoji to your iPhone once a year, which usually happens with an interim update in the spring. In March 2025 the company already introduced more emoji with iOS 18.4. That month you got pictures such as a fingerprint, face with ramparts, tree without leaves, sharp, tuber vegetables, harp, kick, splash and the flag of Sark. For more new emoji we have to wait until next year, when Apple releases iOS 26.4.
The first version of iOS 26 will be released in September, but the new emoji only comes to your iPhone much later. This has to do with the design of the pictures, which will be adjusted in the coming months by developers from Apple. The emoji in the image therefore does not yet have the final design, we probably only see that in March 2026. Do you not want to miss anything? Then register for our newsletter, so that you will always stay informed!
Download the iPhoned app
