Apple's water gun vs. Microsoft's realistic pistol -- which emoji is right? Vote now!
Regardless of your stance on guns, I think everyone can agree that firearms deserve to be treated with respect. Even staunch 2nd amendment proponents will tell you that the weapons are not toys. Proper training and understanding of their potential danger are key for safety.
Understandably, however, some parents don't want their children -- or themselves -- to have guns in their lives at all. Thanks to emoji, guns are sort of unavoidable nowadays. While parents can refuse to buy toy guns for their children, pistol symbols in communications are now a thing. Well, except on iOS 10 beta, that is. Apple has chosen to go against the tech world and Unicode consortium by using a water gun to represent the pistol emoji. Are Tim Cook and company right or wrong in this decision?
First, we should consider the ramifications of having characters have different meanings based on operating system. If the water gun emoji makes it to the final version of iOS, it could be a dangerous thing. Consider this -- an Apple user tweets a water gun emoji to Hillary Clinton on Twitter. Harmless right? Well, if Ms. Clinton were to view the tweet on, say, Windows, it could be seen as a threat. The macOS user could end up in a prison cell!
Let us also ponder why Apple chose to go with a more toned-down image. With all of the shootings in the media nowadays, it is understandable to not want a pistol symbol in a keyboard at this time. Tim Cook and his company are considered "liberal" by many, and I am sure they have good intentions, but maybe this possible knee-jerk reaction was not well thought out.
As you can see below, Apple stands alone.
Jeremy Burge, founder of Emojipedia has a simple solution. He has the following message for Apple.
Apple: Don't change the pistol emoji. At least not today. Hide it. Unicode does not depreciate emojis, but there is no requirement to show all approved emojis on the keyboard. The pistol emoji could be removed from the iOS emoji keyboard without causing any cross platform compatibility issues.
While hiding the emoji makes sense, it does have a negative impact on users, as they will see nothing but an empty box when someone on a different OS uses it.
On the other side of the argument, we have Microsoft. The company took the opposite approach with Windows 10 Anniversary Update, by changing its ray-gun emoji into a more realistic pistol. Is the company making a pro-gun statement? Does it support violence? No! While simply bad timing, Microsoft merely chose to abide by the standard set in place by the Unicode consortium.
I reached out to Microsoft, and a spokesperson told me the following.
“Our intent with every glyph is to align with the global Unicode standard, and the previous design did not map to industry designs or our customers’ expectations of the emoji definition. We will continue to work with the Unicode Consortium to refine and update glyphs that reflects customer needs, feedback and supports a consistent system that works across the digital world”.
On the surface, it would appear that Microsoft is on the right side of the argument, as it merely chose to follow standards. With that said, I understand Apple's desire to send the message that it is against violence -- maybe the iPhone maker is right. This is a tough one.
What do you think? Please vote in the poll below.
[poll id="27"]
Photo credit: 3Dstock / Shutterstock