The instant a new emoji appears on your phone is subtly delightful. Even though it’s tiny—almost ridiculously small when compared to software updates—people still take notice of it. Keyboards are investigated. Screenshots are sent. For a moment, group conversations come to life. If you’ve already scrolled past all of that in search of the emoji section, you’re not alone. Apple’s iOS 26.5, which was released on May 11, is garnering attention for more significant reasons, such as encrypted cross-platform messaging, improved Liquid Glass, and new features for Apple Maps.
Technically, iOS 26.5 did not include the eight new emojis. iOS 26.4, which was released in March and subtly introduced the entire batch as part of Unicode 17.0, holds this distinction. These characters were approved in September of last year by the Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit organization that most people are unaware of but which effectively controls the visual language of the internet. As usual, Apple took its time putting them into practice. With tips and accessibility improvements built on top of the new features that iOS 26.4 introduced, iOS 26.5 offers a slightly improved emoji keyboard experience.
What precisely made the cut, then? An orca, a trombone, a landslide, a fight cloud, ballet dancers, a distorted face with bulging eyes, a treasure chest, and—possibly most memorably—a hairy creature that is basically a Sasquatch are all part of the new lineup. When you consider them collectively, the choice seems both strangely precise and perfectly correct. In particular, the orca seems long overdue. With its warped features and cartoonish chaos, the distorted face already seems like it belongs in every online debate thread.
That one requires a moment to fully appreciate, so it’s worth stopping for a moment on the battle cloud. Imagine the arms and legs flying out from the edges of a swirling cloud of dust from an old-fashioned cartoon fight. The emoji is that. It’s chaotic in the best way possible, and it seems like it will fit right in with sibling group chats and sports commentary very quickly.
The ballet dancers are a different kind of addition; they are more refined, quieter, and have cultural significance that most emojis don’t. This seems like a thoughtful, if modest, step in the long-running discussion about representation in the emoji keyboard. It remains to be seen if it spreads widely or finds a niche. The majority of emojis have unforeseen consequences that their designers most likely did not foresee.
The hairy creature—officially a Sasquatch, though Apple keeps the labeling ambiguous—might emerge as the year’s most popular emoji. The inclusion of a cryptid in Unicode is intrinsically humorous, and humor spreads quickly. The treasure chest is attractive and strangely adaptable. It seems sufficient that the trombone is simply the trombone.
It’s simple to forget how these things get to your screen. While Apple, Google, Samsung, and other companies develop their own visual interpretations, the Unicode Consortium handles the approval. Depending on your device, the same character may appear slightly different. This can occasionally lead to genuine confusion when an emoji that appears warm on one platform appears cold or ironic on another. Apple’s designs for this round are vibrant and expressive, fitting in well with the larger aesthetic change that iOS 26’s Liquid Glass interface has been pursuing.
These emojis will just show up one day and seem to be there forever to the majority of users. Usually, that’s how it operates. A trombone finds its place, a Sasquatch joins the keyboard, and someone is already utilizing the warped face in a way that its creators never could have predicted.
