New emojis coming to iOS 26: Bigfoot, killer whale, and more

NEWS CENTER

Created: July 19, 2025 14:22

The Unicode Consortium , which evaluates new emoji proposals every year, selects hundreds of suggestions and approves the official list. Apple, Google, and other tech companies then develop their own designs based on these recommendations.

This year, the 8 new emojis chosen from more than 160 candidates are as follows:

• Eaten Apple
• Ballet Dancers/Ballerinas
• Distorted Face
• Fight Cloud
• Furry Creature (similar to Bigfoot)
• Orca (Killer Whale)
• Trombone
• Treasure Chest

Apple won't be adding these emojis immediately in the first version of iOS 26. Typically, these kinds of updates are released later in the year in intermediate versions like iOS 26.1 or 26.2. For example, this year's new emojis were released in March with the iOS 18.4 update.

It is eagerly awaited when the first set of emojis will be added to iOS 26.