March 10, 2026, 4:44 pm | Read time: 2 minutes
Since September 2025, the new emojis have been finalized and are set to be supported by all software platforms. In the beta test on the iPhone, Apple had already prepared the integration of the character codes into iOS, and now they are actually available as a preview.
Currently, Apple is rolling out iOS 26.4 Beta 4 to registered developers and participants in the public beta program. The changes are not as significant as in earlier pre-release versions of the update. On the contrary, Apple is even removing a feature from the test run, as it is not intended for the final version.
New and Modified Emojis
iOS 26.4 Beta 3 has already included placeholders for the new emojis decided in 2025 with Unicode 17.0. Previously, entering the official name would display a square with a question mark. In Beta 4, the correct emojis are now included. Newly added are a trombone, a treasure chest, a distorted face, a hairy creature (“Bigfoot”), a comic battle cloud, an orca, and a landslide.
Additionally, there are new skin tone options for wrestling people and dancers with bunny ears. A gender-neutral variant is available for the ballet dancer emoji.
Apple Expands Encrypted Chats to Android
New Emojis Discovered in iOS 26.4
Changes in Accessibility
In accessibility settings under iOS 26.4 Beta 2, the new option “Reduce Highlight Effects” appeared. However, there was no description for the function, so its effect was not clearly known. In Beta 4, the option is now called “Reduce Brightness Effects,” and a brief description explains its purpose: “Minimize highlights and blinking during interactions with screen elements like buttons or the keyboard.”
Apple Removes RCS Encryption
With the introduction of iOS 26.4 Beta 1 to Beta 3, Apple gradually ramped up the test run for end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for RCS messages between iOS and Android. However, the feature is completely absent in Beta 4.
This is not unexpected, as the company had already announced in the documentation for the beta releases of iOS 26.4 for developers that E2EE would not be part of the release. Instead, it will be available to customers in future versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS 26.