iOS 18.4 is here already and it’s bringing these new emoji

By Luke Edwards Published March 31, 2025

Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends

Apple has already released the latest iOS 18.4 update and it’s available to download and install now.

Why would you want to do that? Well there are a whole host of new additions, but, surely eight brand new emoji are enough of a draw on their own.

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Aisde from the eight fresh emoji, Apple has also added Sketch Style in Image Playground, better image organization in Photos, recipes in News+ and of course the usual bug fixes and security updates.

So let’s break down what’s new in iOS 18.4 as well as if and how you can get it on your iPhone.

What’s new in iOS 18.4?

The big headline here is those new emoji. There’s eight in total and these include a smiley with bags under its eyes, a fingerprint, a splatter, a leafless tree, a harp, a root vegetable, a shovel and the flag for the island of Sark. While that last one is pretty case specific, the rest certainly help expand the emoji vocabulary in useful ways.

Also new is Sketch Style in Image Playground which, as you’d expect, allows you to generate images using Apple Intelligence to get a more artistic drawn finish to the image.

Another Intelligence based feature is Priority Notifications, which sorts your messages and other notifications to bring the important, timely ones, to your attention. There are also some new Intelligence languages including French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. Plus, English for speakers in India and Singapore.

Photos has been adjusted with new filters and order options. There’s an option to disable recently viewed or shared items as well as to reorder in diffrerent collections.

The News+ addition of recipes means cooking guidance pulled in from various publishers. There are also stories about restaurants as well as tips for the kitchen and a searchable Recipe Catalog.

Can I get iOS 18.4?

While the update is rolling out to many iPhones, it’s worth nothing that the Apple Intelligence features only work on newer phones that are powerful enough to support this. They are the iPhone 15 Pro, 15 Pro Max and 16 series, including the 16e.

For all other features iOS 18.4 is now available for all iPhones that follow the 2018 iPhone Xs and newer.

How do I get iOS 18.4 on my phone?

To update simply head to Settings on your iPhone then navigate to Software Update. You should then be able to pick if you Install Now or Install Later. In either case that should get the chunky download underway before starting the installation process and rebooting.

News Writer

Luke has over two decades of experience covering tech, science and health. Among many others, Luke writes about health tech…

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