Get ready to upgrade your emoji game! Thanks to the Unicode 16.0 update, a new wave of fun and expressive characters is coming to your iPhone. While the last emoji refresh was nearly a year ago, iOS 18.4 is expected to bring these fresh designs to your keyboard in spring 2025.
The previous emoji update for iPhone arrived in March 2024 with iOS 17.4, adding highlights like the phoenix (🐦🔥), lime wedge (🍋🟩), and head-shaking faces (🙂↔️🙂↕️) from Unicode 15.1. This time, the Unicode 16.0 batch promises a mix of practical icons, playful symbols, and cultural additions to keep your messages vibrant.
Unicode 16.0 introduces seven new emoji characters that represent a variety of emotions, themes, and everyday scenarios. These include Face with Bags Under Eyes, Fingerprint, Harp, Splatter, Root Vegetable, Leafless Tree, and Shovel. An eighth emoji, Flag of Sark, is also included in Emoji 16.0 but not Unicode 16.0 because Unicode no longer accepts flag proposals.
The full lineup and details are below. If you can’t see the new emoji characters, it’s because your device is not yet capable of viewing the new Emoji 16.0 characters. But you can still see what they look like in the image above.
Smileys and Emotion (1 total)
People and Body (1 total)
Animals and Nature (1 total)
Food and Drink (1 total)
Objects (2 total)
Symbols (1 total)
Flags (1 total)
If you’re not running the latest iOS when these emoji roll out, you might see placeholders or, for Flag of Sark, the grouped regional indicator letters “CQ” instead.
The Unicode 16.0 emojis are expected to be adopted by major platforms throughout 2025. These emojis will roll out across Apple devices with iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS Sequoia 15.4; Android devices with Android 16; Samsung devices with the next big One UI update; Windows PCs with the 2025 Windows 11 update; and popular platforms like Gmail, ChromeOS, and YouTube following Google’s Noto Color Emoji update.
There is already speculation about the emoji coming with Unicode 17.0, with characters like Treasure Chest and Trombone. However, following Apple’s usual schedule, those emoji likely won’t appear on iPhones until spring 2026 with iOS 19.4.
Before the upcoming spring 2025 update, Apple issued new emoji packs to iPhone in iOS 17.4 in March 2024, iOS 16.4 in March 2023, and iOS 15.4 in March 2024.
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Cover photo and screenshots by Gadget Hacks
