Apple Just Revealed Its New iPhone Emojis—And People Have Thoughts

Let's be honest: Most of us have a little computer riding around in our pocket or purse that we refer to much more often than we might like. There's a good chance you're reading this on one of those devices, too!

And as consumers of mobile phone technology, we all have wants and desires for how these devices could be better, and once again, it seems like the production companies are just not listening.

iPhone users are still getting used to the 26.3.1 update, and already, Apple is working on the 26.4 update. While users might like better cache clearing control, sound mixing, and notification settings, one of the key highlights of the 26.4 will be its new emojis.

This week, Apple Hub on X revealed a new batch of emojis that are coming to the text messaging board within the iOS system.

They include a trombone, a treasure chest, a distorted face, a hairy creature, a fight cloud, an orca, and a landslide.

In a follow-up tweet, there is also a ballet dancer, people wrestling, and two people wearing bunny ears.

These emojis are not Apple originals but rather are their interpretations of popular Unicode emojis from Version 17.0. An important distinction about these emojis is their level of detail, especially in the upcoming treasure chest with actual visible treasure, as well as the falling rock design of the landslide emoji and the finer details of the fight cloud.

You can see the reveal here:

X users were immediately confused, because while there's technically nothing wrong with these emojis, there are lots of other features that people would have liked to receive first, like better editing features, better personalization, and the return of some old favorite emojis instead.

Because seriously, who asked for a landslide? Stevie Nicks?

Also, what's with this guy's name?

Why were these emojis chosen over countless other options? What about other features?

Only one emoji from the new batch showed true potential.

These emojis are pretty fun, despite how random they are. But based on early reactions, it's clear that there are other emojis users would have preferred to see—not to mention other features they'd prefer Apple focus on instead of creating more emoji options.

One of the glorious things about also having GIF options is being able to add one of them when the emojis just don't do our emotions justice. With the combination of these two features, there's plenty of flexibility already in our communication, so Apple can focus on other features instead.