You’re Getting 31 More Emoji on Your iPhone Soon, and Some of Them Are Worth the Wait « iOS & iPhone :: Gadget Hacks

We haven’t seen an emoji update for iPhone since iOS 15.4, which gave us 112 new emoji characters, but that’s finally changing with the upcoming release of iOS 16.4. Here are all the new emoji you’ll get in the software update.

The new emoji have already been a part of Unicode 15.0 since Sept. 13, 2022, but it’s taken Apple a long time to finally implement them into the iOS keyboard. There are 21 new emoji, and two have five additional skin tone variations, making it 31 new emoji altogether. Some highlights include a shaking face, pink heart, jellyfish, hair pick, pea pod, ginseng, hyacinth flower, and wing.

Perhaps the most exciting emoji additions are the leftward-pushing hand and rightward-pushing hand characters because you can put them together into a high-five pose. Even better, you can add another emoji inside them, such as an explosion or eye, to create a dramatic effect.

All the new emoji can be seen in the below chart. However, you won’t see the skin tone versions of the leftward-pushing hand and rightward-pushing hand characters because Apple hasn’t made those available yet.

The new emoji can be seen on iOS 16.4 and iPadOS 16.4, and probably on macOS 13.3, all in beta since Feb. 16. They’ll be available to everyone in the public release of the software, likely in March 2023.

Smileys & People (13 total)
🫷 - leftward pushing hand
🫸 - rightward pushing hand
? - leftward pushing hand with light skin tone
? - rightward pushing hand with light skin tone
? - leftward pushing hand with medium light skin tone
? - rightward pushing hand with medium light skin tone
? - leftward pushing hand with medium skin tone
? - rightward pushing hand with medium skin tone
? - leftward pushing hand with medium dark skin tone
? - rightward pushing hand with medium dark skin tone
? - leftward pushing hand with dark skin tone
? - rightward pushing hand with dark skin tone
﫨 - shaking face

Animals & Nature (7 total)
🐦‍⬛ - black bird
🫏 - donkey
🪿 - goose
🪻 - hyacinth (flower)
🪼 - jellyfish
🫎 - moose (face)
🪽 - wing

Food & Drink (2 total)
🫚 - ginger
🫛 - pea pod

Activity (2 total)
🪈 - flute
🪇 - maracas

Objects (2 total)
🪭 - folding hand fan
🪮 - hair pick

Symbols (5 total)
🩶 - gray heart
🪯 - khanda (sword and shield symbol)
🩵 - light blue heart
🩷 - pink heart
🛜 - wireless (network signal)