New emoji like a shaking face or new heart colors are available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV with iOS 16.4 and other updates.
- What’s happening? iOS 16.4 adds 31 new emoji characters announced in July 2022 as part of the Emoji Consortium 5.0 specification.
- Why care? Are you serious? Everyone loves emoji!
- What to do? Install iOS 16.4 when it goes public.
31 new emoji in iOS 16.4
The new emoji are available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Watch with iOS 16.4, iPadOS 16.4, macOS Ventura 13.3, tvOS 16.4, and watchOS 9.4.
New emojis include: shaking face, simple pink heart, light blue heart, gray heart, blackbird, donkey, jellyfish, hairpin, comb, pushing hands, flute, ginger, goose, wing, folding fan, pea pod, hyacinth, maracas, khanda (Sikh creed symbol) and several pushing hands left and right with different skin tones.
The Emoji Consortium proposed new emojis in July 2022 and completed them in September of that year. Operating system vendors including Apple, Microsoft, and Google implement emoji graphics based on the official specification, but each vendor applies their own artistic style to these expressive symbols.
I will never stop talking about how useful a pink heart emoji will be
— emchai🌺 pspspspsps (@lithilizieI) July 11, 2022
How to get new emoji in iOS 16.4
Of course, you will need to update your devices to get the new emoji characters. If you’re brave enough, you can install the iOS 16.4 beta right now via beta.apple.com. Or, preferably, just wait a few weeks for the updates to become public.
If you choose to install beta versions, remember that people using previous versions of Apple’s operating systems won’t be able to see the new emoji you send them.
Is it smart to move to iOS 16.4 beta?
It’s best not to install pre-release software on devices you depend on. The first beta version of iOS 16.4 was released on February 16, 2023. Apple will spend several weeks testing upcoming updates before they are released to all users in the spring.