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[...] The Emojipedia website argued that the symbol could still appear as a lifelike gun in messages sent to non-iOS users. Apple made the change in the wake of a series of shootings in the US.
However, Microsoft announced this week that its toy gun symbol would be redesigned as a more realistic-looking firearm. The emoji character system allows companies to use slightly different designs of the same basic objects, signs or expressions.
"The thing is, emojis already look different on different platforms and it does cause confusion," Jeremy Burge, editor of Emojipedia, told the BBC. "When we're dealing with guns and toys as a comparison, that's a whole new level of problems that we have there."
[...] "Apple has the most prominent emoji set that people use," said Mr Burge. "I think it has a high responsibility to be a bit cautious."
There was further criticism from web users, but a columnist in the Guardian praised the move as a statement on gun control.
"It's a smart, small part in the battle - which we're presently losing - to keep Americans safe," wrote Jean Hannah Edelstein. There have been calls previously - including from a campaign called Disarm the iPhone - to remove the handgun icon from iOS devices.
[...] Both Apple and Microsoft have said they are working with the Unicode Consortium - the body that maintains lists of emojis across different platforms.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 07 2016, @04:49AM
I think they should keep it. Nothing bothers me more than purposeful deviations from a standard. The whole point of a standard is to allow things to interoperate and that things work across platforms/programs whatever. To me, this is no different than Apple deciding to replace the glyph of "†" with "t" because the stylizing of the dagger might offend. The standard says that is supposed to be the dagger character, so changing it to something else changes the meaning, can cause confusion or whatever else when working across platform. Can't wait for someone to get shot by police when they text their friend about the water fight in the park.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 07 2016, @06:17AM
For at least 10 years apple has been purposefully deviating from standards. Just in case you had missed it.
By the way: my own opinion is that standardizing emoji's is a disgusting waste of resources. It's kinda like the wives meeting to discuss and decide, on the basis of serious scientific research, which lubricant is best to buy for the hubbies when they are jerking off to porn.
(Score: 5, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday August 07 2016, @07:12AM
I agree. No, actually I don't: I think including emojis in Unicode was not just a waste of resources, but actually harmful.
But as things currently go, I'll expect the Unicode consortium to add new modifiers (err, combining "characters"), like a "toy" modifier that specifies that the emoji should be displayed as a toy item, and a "real object" specifier that specifies that the emoji should be displayed as the real item.
At the beginning, the Unicode consortium did a great job. But nowadays I think they do more harm than good.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 07 2016, @05:14PM
Oh, I agree it is a total waste of resources, but then don't implement the standard at all. The selective picking and choosing of what parts to implement is a bigger problem. At least people will know it doesn't work, rather than having edge cases.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Bot on Sunday August 07 2016, @07:29AM
Yep this is exertion of control, and it obviously, as a side effect (or as the first intended consequence, we are talking about corporations who are demonstrably sociopath organizations), preps people for more.
We break the standard, for OF COURSE IMPORTANT SAFETY REASONS BECAUSE WE KNOW BETTER, and you, the user, have no say whatsoever.
Today an emoji, tomorrow a system setting.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday August 07 2016, @01:08PM
Well at least this time they're not deviating from standards purely to screw people over for more money and lock-in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 07 2016, @03:55PM
Check out the difference in turd emojis. No real standardization even now.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday August 07 2016, @08:54PM
It seems like I'm not the only one who saw this serious problem (although my comment was rated Funny for some reason): https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=14819&cid=383490 [soylentnews.org]
Really, you'd think no on at Apple has a brain.
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