What Are the New iPhone Emojis? A Complete Guide to the Latest Additions
Every year, Apple rolls out a fresh batch of emojis alongside its major iOS updates — and each release tends to spark genuine curiosity. Whether you spotted something new on your keyboard or heard people talking about a specific emoji you can't find, here's what you need to know about how iPhone emoji updates work, what's new, and what affects whether you'll actually see them.
How iPhone Emojis Get Updated
Apple doesn't invent emojis from scratch. New emoji characters are defined by the Unicode Consortium, a non-profit standards body that maintains the universal character encoding system used across all devices and platforms. Once Unicode publishes a new emoji standard, Apple designs its own visual interpretation and ships it via an iOS update.
This means two things matter for what you see on your iPhone:
- Your iOS version — older iOS versions won't display newer emojis
- The Unicode version — each emoji release is tied to a specific Unicode Emoji standard (e.g., Emoji 15.0, 15.1)
What's New in the Latest iPhone Emoji Update 🆕
As of iOS 17.4, Apple introduced support for Unicode Emoji 15.1, adding over 100 new emojis and emoji variations to the iPhone keyboard. The additions fall into a few notable categories:
New Standalone Emojis
Some of the most talked-about new additions include:
- Phoenix — a mythical firebird, widely requested for years
- Lime — distinct from the existing lemon emoji
- Mushroom — a standalone fungi emoji
- Brown mushroom — a variation on the above
- Leafless tree — a bare, winter-style tree
- Harp — the stringed instrument
- Shovel
- Splatter (abstract paint-style shape)
New Face and Hand Variations
Emoji 15.1 also expanded direction-facing variants for existing emojis, meaning many people and body-part emojis can now face either left or right — a frequently requested accessibility and creative feature. This includes:
- People walking, running, and kneeling facing different directions
- Families and person emojis in new directional poses
New Skin Tone Combinations for Couple Emojis
Apple also extended mixed skin tone support to additional couple and family emoji combinations, giving users more ways to represent diverse relationships accurately.
How to Check If You Have the Latest Emojis
Not everyone sees new emojis at the same time. Here's what determines your access:
| Factor | What It Affects |
|---|---|
| iOS version | Whether new emoji characters render correctly |
| Recipient's device/OS | Whether they see your emoji or a replacement box |
| App support | Some apps display system emojis; others use custom sets |
| Keyboard settings | Emoji keyboard must be enabled in Settings |
To check your iOS version: Settings → General → About → iOS Version. New emoji support typically arrives with point releases (like 17.4 or 17.5), not only major annual updates.
Why Some Emojis Show as Boxes or Question Marks
If you send a new emoji to someone and they see a blank box or a "?" symbol, their device or app doesn't support that emoji yet. The emoji was sent correctly — their system simply doesn't have the character mapped to a visible glyph. This is especially common when messaging between iOS and older Android versions, or between users on different iOS generations.
How Apple Designs Its Emoji vs. Other Platforms 🍎
Unicode defines the concept of an emoji — not its appearance. Apple, Google, Samsung, and Microsoft each design their own visual style. This is why the same emoji can look noticeably different on an iPhone versus an Android device. Apple's emoji tend toward rounded, detailed, three-dimensional designs, while Google's have moved toward flatter aesthetics. Neither is "wrong" — they're just different interpretations of the same character code.
This also means an emoji Apple introduces with a particular visual style may look entirely different when received on another platform — or may not display at all if the receiving OS is out of date.
Variables That Affect Your Emoji Experience
The new emojis available to you — and how they behave — depends on a combination of factors that vary from user to user:
- Which iPhone model you own — older models may not support the latest iOS versions required for new emojis
- Whether you've updated iOS — new emojis don't appear until you install the relevant update
- Who you're messaging — cross-platform and cross-version conversations can produce inconsistent results
- Which apps you use — platforms like WhatsApp, Slack, and Twitter/X sometimes maintain their own emoji sets, which update on their own schedule independently of iOS
Someone on an iPhone 15 running the latest iOS will have a meaningfully different emoji experience than someone on an iPhone XR who hasn't updated in two years — even though both are technically "iPhone users."
The emojis available on your device, and how they actually appear in your conversations, ultimately comes down to the intersection of your hardware, your update habits, and the platforms you and the people you message are using.