Apple and the Gun Emoji

A text filter is very different from the visual representation of an emoji which the unicode consortium gives a lot of leeway to IMEs to implement.

Everyone is only angry about this change because it was a normal pistol first and changed to a water pistol later. What if it was the inverse? Then we'd have people complaining the other way. My point is that people expect the emoji to represent what they've been taught it to represent, but in actuality the IME is the one who chooses how exactly it should look. Just look at the saltine cookie vs the chocolate chip cookie.

As for your last point it's quite unlikely that they would add that because it's too redundant to the pistol emoji. Though for facial expressions, the consortium gives specific recommendations on how to differentiate them and the IME would have to consider those.

Have a look at http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1F300.pdf to see how much guidance they actually give on the looks of each. For most they list synonyms for searching and related emoji. For some they go more in depth on the look such as for U+1F4DE Telephone Receiver.

> Everyone is only angry about this change because it was a normal pistol first and changed to a water pistol later. What if it was the inverse? Then we'd have people complaining the other way.

You say that as if it's a counter-argument, but it's really further proof that changing it is bad. Yes, it is confusing to change emojis that used to be one thing to be another thing, so it shouldn't be done, regardless of direction. Opposing all such changes is entirely consistent. If Apple wants a water pistol emoji they should add a new one, not replace an existing emoji that means something else.

The difference here is the intent. And I already explained why they likely wouldn't get a specific water pistol emoji. HNers actually think that they think they changed it to a water pistol because they wanted an emoji to represent a water pistol?

Emojis are supposed to represent a specific meaning, though the visual representation can of course change across platforms. Any gun would be an appropriate representation, but a toy gun is not as it occupies a separate semantic space.

Your own source seems to exemplify why a toy gun doesn't fit. It specifies "pistol" or alternatively a handgun or revolver.

If someone wrote "the man walked in holding a pistol/revolver/handgun in his right hand" you would justifiably be surprised if the writer later explained that it was a bright green toy gun. They're different things.

Imagine if an IME decided to substitute the GLOWING STAR emoji with SUN WITH FACE. They would not be following the guidelines as the sun and stars are semantically separate concepts, even if technically the sun is a star.