If you want to shake up your emoji life and you have an iPhone, you've now got 118 new ways to do it. Emojis are elaborate and creative these days, with the newest update adding a lime and a phoenix, among other images. The new, colorful little icons are now available on the iPhone, but only as part of the iOS 17.4 beta. Folks not using the beta version will have to wait for the final public release of iOS 17.4, expected in March or April. 

Some of the emoji -- like the phoenix, brown mushroom, lime and a broken chain -- are new. Others are variations of emoji that already exist, with different skin tones or simply turned in a different direction. Those adjusted emoji include people walking, running, kneeling, using wheelchairs and using white canes. There are also four new gender-neutral family group emoji.

You won't be able to find these new emoji on your keyboard just yet, though. While version 15.1.0 of the Unicode was approved on Sept. 12 (you can read all of it here), there's always a lag between the approval and its release. Emojipedia had estimated that the new emoji would be available in early 2024.

It's also likely that each emoji's appearance will be slightly different depending on whether you use an Apple or Android smartphone.

The emoji update before this one included a long-awaited pink heart, a shaking-head smiley and a donkey, moose and goose. 

Honestly, though, according to emoji reference site Emojipedia, it's the simple emoji that really resonate with users. The top three most-used emoji in 2023 were the crying with laughter face, the rolling on the floor laughing face and the simple red heart, Emojipedia Editor in Chief Keith Broni said, according to the New York Post. Of the new emojis released in 2023, three hearts with different colors -- pink, blue and gray -- were among the most popular, along with the shaking face.

Here are tips on how to decipher certain emoji, plus five emoji keyboards that make texting more fun. And those emoji won't be worth much without a phone, so here's CNET's guide to the best Apple phone for 2024, plus the best Samsung Galaxy phone, and the best overall Android phone. If option paralysis has set in, here's how to pick the best smartphone for your needs.

Read also: Apple Will Allow Installation of Rival App Stores on iPhones... but Only in Europe