After an update to the emoji spec in 2022, 31 new Emoji have been added to the iOS 16.4 beta.
Emojis can be useful, can be controversial. and are incredibly popular. Every year, the Unicode Consortium considers proposals for new emoji, and if approved, they are adopted by Apple and others.
The Emoji Consortium finalized the version 5.0 spec in September of 2022. Starting in the iOS 16.4 betas, version 15 of the Unicode Consortium's list of emoji has been incorporated.
The new emojis include no new people but do include the long-awaited pink heart. Others include a crow, jellyfish, peas in a pod, moose peas, and others.
Once the Unicode Consortium publishes its final list at the end of a year, technology typically takes time to adopt the new emoji. So, for instance, while Apple did add 123 new emoji after the approval in September 2021, they didn't appear on iPhones until iOS 15.4 in March 2022.