apple's new emojis tap into 'shook' mood along with long-awaited pink heart

A first look at the new emojis in iOS 16.4

A total of 31 new emojis were revealed as part of the beta release of Apple’s iOS 16.4. The update introduces a number of different characters, featuring a ‘shook’ face, two pushing hands, several new animals including a donkey, a moose, a goose, and a jellyfish, as well as the long-awaited plain pink heart. All of the new designs were first introduced in July 2022 and then added to Unicode’s recommendation link in September 2022.

new characters include a shaking face, two pushing hands, and several new animals | all images courtesy of Emojipedia

shaking face, colored hearts, donkey, pea pod and more…

As stated above, the most notable emojis in the iOS 16.4 beta release (find more here) include a new shaking face, three new colored heart emojis, and two new hand gestures that should be supported in the usual skin tone range, although the current beta doesn’t allow access to them.

Also included are several new characters from the Animals & Nature category, including a donkey, moose, goose, wing, jellyfish, hyacinth, and blackbird. New designs for Food & Drink include a pea pod and a ginger emoji, and designs in the Activity & Objects category include a flute, maracas, a hair pick, and a hand fan. Finally, new Symbols emojis include the aforementioned colored hearts, the Khanda symbol of the Sikh faith, and a wifi symbol.

Coming in spring 2023

A suggested use for the new ‘shaking face’ emoji may be to express shock from external forces (earthquakes or loud noises) or internal emotions (disbelief or excitement). Each of the two pushing hands can be used on their own to represent a shoving or ‘stop’ gesture, or they can be placed side by side to form a new ‘high five’ emoji. The plain pink heart emoji has been in high demand for some time and, along with the light blue and gray hearts, fills in some voids in the heart emoji color spectrum.

The emojis will be included in iOS 16.4 beta 1, which is already available to Apple Developer Program participants and will be released later this spring.

the new ‘shaking face’ emoji can be used to express physical shock from external forces or internal emotions