Welcome to 9 to 5 Mac Daily for Thursday, March 12, 26. I'm your host, Chance Miller. We are supported

this week by card pointers. Leading off today, Apple this week rolled out iOS 26.4 beta 4, and it includes

a number of brand new emoji for iPhone users. Every year, a group called the Unicode

consortium votes to approve a new batch of emoji that will later be added to the iPhone, as well as other

platforms like Android and Windows. The iOS 26 batch of new emoji were officially approved last

summer, and they're finally being added to the iPhone with iOS 26.4.

The new emoji include ballet dancers, distorted face, fight cloud, hairy creature, landslide,

orca, trombone, and treasure chest. Even though Apple Intelligence enables iPhone users to create

their own gin moji, these new official emoji are

important additions because they join the cross-platform standard. So once iOS 26.4 and other

compatible updates ship, you'll be able to send and receive these emoji easily across all of your

favorite messaging platforms. You can get a closer look at these emoji at the link in the show notes below.

Next of today, a pair of new rumors about the iPhone 18 Pro outline what to expect from the design,

the dimensions, and more.

The 18 Pro is only about six months away, and the latest rumors introduce some clarity,

but also

some fresh ambiguity into Apple's plans.

From a design perspective, we've been expecting several changes, including a thicker

design for a larger battery, a dynamic island that's about 35% smaller, and new colors.

A new post this week specifies that the iPhone 18 Pro Max will be 8.8.8 millimeters thick. For context, the 17 Pro Max is 8.75 millimeters thick, and the 16 Pro Max was

8.25 millimeters thick. So the increase here is pretty small, especially compared to the increase

from the 16 Pro Max to the 17 Pro Max. A separate report also says that Apple is considering reusing

...