iOS 26.4 Emojis
The update that put the Distorted Face on the iPhone
What emoji did iOS 26.4 add?
iOS 26.4 shipped in March 2026 and added the Emoji 17.0 set, roughly six months after Unicode ratified it. Seven of the additions are genuinely new drawings, led by the Distorted Face and the Orca. The remaining 156 are skin-tone and variant sequences, most of them letting the two figures in people wrestling and people with bunny ears carry different skin tones.
At a glance
| Shipped | |
|---|---|
| Platform | Apple iOS |
| Emoji version implemented | Emoji 17.0 |
| Emoji added | 163 |
The emoji iOS 26.4 is remembered for
How to get these emoji
Emoji ship inside the system font, so there is no separate download and nothing to enable.
- Open Settings, then General, then Software Update.
- Install iOS 26.4 or any later version.
- Open any keyboard and tap the emoji button. The new characters are already in the picker.
If you send one of these to somebody on an older release, they see a blank box. The character transmits correctly either way, and appears as soon as they update.
The standard behind this release
Unicode 17.0 was published on 9 September 2025 and reached most phones during the first half of 2026. The headline count of 163 is misleading on its own: only seven are genuinely new drawings. The other 156 are skin-tone and variant sequences, most of them filling in the people wrestling and people with bunny ears emoji so both figures can carry different skin tones independently.
Read the full Unicode 17.0 recordFrequently Asked Questions
How do I get the iOS 26.4 emoji?
Open Settings, then General, then Software Update, and install iOS 26.4 or later. The emoji arrive with the system font, so there is no separate download and no keyboard setting to switch on.
Why can my friend not see the new emoji I sent?
Because the glyph lives in their font, not in your message. Anyone still on iOS 26.3 or earlier, or on an Android that has not had the update, sees a blank box. The character is intact and will appear correctly once they update.
Did iOS 26.4 change any existing emoji designs?
The release was focused on adding the Emoji 17.0 set rather than redrawing older artwork. Apple does occasionally revise existing designs in point releases, so compare against our platform images if a familiar emoji looks different to you.