Apple released its iOS 17.4 update for the iPhone on Tuesday. The update includes many new emoji, including a phoenix, shaking heads, and gender-neutral families.

For example, this year’s new batch arrived in iOS 18.4 this March. It’s not always so late though. iOS 26.1 and iOS 26.2 could bring the new emoji before the year ends.

Apple typically adds new sets of approved emoji to a .X release of iOS, so it’s unlikely we’ll see any of these additions in September’s initial iOS 18 release.

Apple released iOS 18.4 on March 31, and it introduced a handful of new features, like a recipes section in Apple News and more controls in Control Center, to all iPhones. The new emoji include a ...

Under a tweet revealing iOS 18.4’s new emoji, one commenter predicted, “I bet this is the most used emoji of the year. 3 months into 2025 and everyone is already tired.” Another user added ...

iOS 18.4 introduced the Unicode 16 emoji, which included bags under eyes, fingerprint, leafless tree, root vegetable, harp, shovel, and splatter.

iOS 18 adds fresh emojis that say what words can’t. From grossed out to guilty, here’s every new one and how it fits into your texts.

The iOS 17.4 update was released back in March of this year. If Apple utilizes similar timing, iOS 18.4 would be the update that delivers these emoji characters to iPhone users around the world.