The Unicode Consortium has just released the official artwork for nine all-new emoji, and here’s the catch nobody mentions right away: they aren’t ready for you to use. Not this month, and not this fall on the phone you’re holding now. The characters become final in September, but Apple and the rest of the industry still need time to draw and roll out their own takes.
So circle a date on next year’s calendar.
Based on what’s known right now, the set is expected to reach iPhones together with iOS 27. That matches the release rhythm Apple has followed for years, and it explains why a design that gets the green light in a few weeks won’t show up on your keyboard until a full software cycle passes.
What’s actually in the batch
Nine emoji. That figure comes from the Unicode Standard and Research Working Group, the arm of the Consortium that decides which of these little pictures the wider industry agrees to back.
Here’s the roster: two fresh hand signs, a single face, a butterfly, a fishing net, a meteor, a lighthouse, a pickle and an eraser. Ordinary, everyday symbols — the sort that quietly pull the most weight in a text thread.
The two hands you’ll lean on most
Stealing the spotlight are the pair of thumb gestures, one aimed left and the other aimed right. Their official names are the Leftwards Thumb Sign and the Rightwards Thumb Sign.
If you’ve ever wished for a thumbs-up that points sideways rather than straight up, this is the addition that plugs the hole. It’s a minor thing. It’s also exactly the kind of minor thing people grab for constantly once it’s available.
A fractured grin and a butterfly
The single face joining the lineup is the Cracked Smiling Face — a smile split by a fault line. Interpret it however your group chat wants to.
Rounding things out is the Monarch Butterfly, a particular species rather than a generic insect, and that detail counts if you’ve ever wanted the orange-and-black one instead of the blue butterfly that had been the sole choice.
The unusual additions
Then there are the entries that make these lists entertaining. A meteor. A lighthouse. A fishing net, catalogued as Net with Handle. An eraser. And yes, a pickle — a standalone Pickle emoji that’s precisely what it sounds like.
None of these will transform the way you type. But each one fills a gap someone had flagged, and the pickle especially has been an ongoing ask within emoji circles for quite some time.
Why the delay is the actual headline
Here’s the timeline that catches people off guard. The emoji release lands in September. The point at which they’re actually usable on your phone does not.
Each platform — Apple, Google and everyone else — takes the approved spec and creates its own artwork on its own timetable. That’s the reason the same emoji can appear one way in Messages and another way on an Android device, and it’s why these nine won’t turn up everywhere simultaneously.
The report names iOS 27 as the arrival window for iPhone, with Android phones trailing on their own schedules. So if you’re eager for that sideways thumb, don’t count on it before next year’s software update. Once it does show up, it’ll be a standard keyboard addition, ready to slot into texts, posts or wherever else you’d like it.