Hairy creature and fight cloud: The 8 new iPhone emojis to send the group chat

Apple’s iOS 26.4 has dropped a fresh batch of emojis, and, as usual, I’m struggling to imagine when I’d actually use half of them.

In the latest rollout, a ballet dancer, distorted face, fight cloud, hairy creature, landslide, orca whale, trombone and treasure chest are all getting added to the lineup.

According to 9to5Mac, every year the Unicode Consortium votes on new emojis, which eventually land on iPhones, Android, Windows and more. The iOS 26 batch was approved last summer, and now we finally get to play with them.

Niche, right?! Unless you are a ballet enthusiast, have band practice, or are contemplating becoming a pirate in your spare time… lol.

Though there’s a good chance those of us who love a good conspiracy will use the Bigfoot, ahem, ‘Hairy Creature’ in the group chat.

And there’s probably a few contacts whose name could simply be changed to the hairy creature just for a good giggle.

The internet is already having a field day coming up with other uses for the fresh collection.

“Me when my boss asks if I've completed the tasks he asked me to do,” one user wrote on X, alongside the distorted face.

Something tells me the inspo behind this one was the classic “you got games?” meme.

“The fight cloud emoji is about to become the most used one in every group chat argument,” another said.

Someone else has thought up a brilliant use of the trombone, referring to an episode of ‘Spongebob’.

Meanwhile, people are still campaigning for a Seahorse emoji - not because they need it, but because they swear it existed at some point.

One of our own rova reporters even investigated back in 2023 to see if it was real or just a Mandela effect.

Honestly, we could spend all day coming up with emojis we want… don't let me drag you down that rabbit hole.