The Unicode Consortium adds new character emojis for devices like smartphones and other gadgets every year. This week, Unicode 17 is adding 8 emojis that were recommended: trombone, orca, apple core, treasure chest, landslide, distorted face, bigfoot, and fight cloud. Current emojis like people wrestling, people that have bunny ears, and ballet dancers have different skin tones now.
Mockups were made for these emojis by the Unicode to give an idea of what these emojis will look like, whilst Apple’s designers make their version of the emojis according to their company’s style once it’s finalized. Approval of Unicode 17 may be next fall, and will most likely arrive to iOS in the Spring of 2026. But the good news is Apple is releasing Unicode 16 emojis that were approved last year in September sometime next year, including a fingerprint emoji, a leafless tree, face with eye bags, harp, splatter, root vegetable, and a shovel.
