Baggy Eyes, Fingerpints, and Splatters | Here Are the New Emojis Coming to iOS 18.4
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As usual, the arrival of spring will also bring a collection of new emojis to your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Apple has already snuck the latest collection of emojis into the second iOS 18.4 beta, released earlier this week, giving us a sneak peek at what to expect.
While the emojis themselves aren’t a big surprise — we’ve known they were coming in some form to iOS 18 since last May, when the Unicode Consortium published the draft Emoji 16.0 beta spec. As we said at the time, these were “wearier selections” than we usually see, contrasting with the vibrant phoenix and juice lime wedge that arrived in last year’s iOS 17.4 update.
Still, it’s always a fun surprise to see how Apple renders the emojis in its operating systems. That’s because the Unicode Consortium, the standards group responsible for ensuring that not just emojis but all of the other characters on your keyboard (and those of every other country) can be represented properly across every platform and operating system, doesn’t dictate precisely how they should be drawn. Instead, it just offers up a general outline, leaving each company to come up with its own interpretation.
The Emoji 16 collection outlines a Face with Bags Under Eyes, Fingerprint, Splatter, Root Vegetable, Leafless Tree, Harp, Shovel, and a Flag for Sark. Below are the illustrations for each of these that were cooked up by the folks at Emojipedia for the initial draft.
Now, Keith Broni, Emojipedia’s Editor-in-Chief, has shared a first look at what Apple has done with the spec. As usual, they’re far more fun and vibrant, adding some of the company’s flair for design.
When it comes to designing emojis, Apple’s creative team goes above and beyond to add their own spin while adding remarkable attention to detail. While today’s collection is doesn’t appear to have any hidden details like Apple’s Coin emoji, which is embossed with “The Crazy Ones” on the outer rim, there’s still a remarkable level of detail here.
For instance the Leafless Tree only specifies “A bare tree trunk with branches lacking in leaves,” but Apple has made it look more unique with a tree hollow in the front. Apple’s Harp, Shovel, and Root Vegetable are also remarkably detailed compared to the more cartoony versions that you’ll find at the links above.
Nevertheless, these interpretations don’t differ dramatically compared to some others that Apple has tackled. For example, last year’s Emoji 15.1 spec was initially interpreted as a full lime (essentially a yellow lemon). However, the Lime we got from Apple (and most others) ended up being a wedge instead.
Apple also removed the blood from the Syringe emoji in iOS 14.5 to make it more versatile in an era when COVID-19 vaccinations were the norm. Other eventually followed suit, and that’s since become the standard Syringe emoji on nearly every major platform.
Unsurprisingly, Apple also tends to render emojis with its products wherever relevant. The Headphone emoji is a set of AirPods Max, the Mobile Phone Emoji is clearly an iPhone, and the Laptop, Man Technologist, and Female Technologist emojis use a MacBook, complete with a tiny Apple logo.
While the new Emoji 16 characters are present in the second iOS 18.4 beta, they’re not yet obvious. Broni notes that they’re not showing up in any of the emoji keyboard categories, so you’ll have to search for them by name.
Apple has also updated the design for the Flag: Syria emoji to the nation’s new de facto flag, which now has three red stars and a green stripe on the top, instead of the old design which had two green stars with a red stripe.
We’ll likely see the emojis appearing in their proper spots in upcoming iOS 18.4 betas, but don’t get too excited about using them just yet, as they won’t show up properly unless the person on the other end is also running iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, or macOS 15.4, or is on another platform that’s already adopted the Emoji 16 character set.
