It appears that iOS 17.4 is bringing some major changes to how Apple and iPhone will function, including some new emojis that might offer some interesting new options for conversations.
These emoji are part of the Unicode 15.1 update which was approved back in September 2023. The approved emojis include a phoenix, a lime, a mushroom, a broken chain and both a yes and no headshake.
There are also four new family emoji combinations and updates to six people emojis (person walking, person running, person kneeling, person with a white cane, person in a manual wheelchair and person in a motorized wheelchair) that now have direction specifications, allowing users to select the direction that the emoji will face.
The selection is small compared to the emoji additions made in iOS 16.4 last year. This is partly due to this Unicode Consortium considering this a "minor version update," and partly because several of the update's new spaces were reserved for new Chinese characters, supposedly needed urgently for "public service databases."
iOS 17.4 is currently only available to developers as a beta, but it does look to offer a few interesting things. One of the largest is that it seems that Apple will be implementing the EU-mandated changes to the App Store that will offer alternative app stores to the user. There are also new alternative payment options and the option to stream games on the app store.
Including new emojis and new customization options for existing ones is always nice to see. While it is true that there are fewer than we expect, the new emojis do offer more personalized conversations, and that’s never a bad thing.
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