Overview
- Developer and public beta 4 make Apple’s artwork for the latest Unicode 17 emoji visible on the keyboard for the first time.
- New options include Distorted Face, Orca, Trombone, Treasure Chest, Hairy Creature/Bigfoot, Fight Cloud, Landslide and Ballet Dancers.
- Emojipedia reports a total of 163 designs in this beta, combining 13 new concepts with 150 skin‑tone and sequence variations.
- Apple added new skin‑tone modifiers for People Wrestling and People With Bunny Ears and introduced a gender‑neutral Ballet Dancer.
- Apple removed the RCS end‑to‑end encryption test in beta 4 and says full RCS encryption will arrive in a future update, while this build also adds support for iPhone 17e and M4 iPad Air and continues polish ahead of a late‑March or early‑April release.