While Apple was switching the gun emoji for a water pistol, Microsoft did the opposite

Apple made headlines earlier this week when it introduced iOS 10 Developer Beta 4, and in doing so, replaced the gun emoji with a water pistol.

The next day, Microsoft would do precisely the opposite. In releasing the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, the former toy gun emoji in Microsoft's OS is now a revolver.

The world is now ripe for miscommunication. An iOS 10 user might send a playful water pistol to a friend running the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, who might perceive it as a threat, or vice versa. Surely, the water pistol/toy gun and the image of a real gun mean very different things.

If you've been running the Windows 10 Insider Previews, you've had the new character for some time. Microsoft originally redesigned its emoji set in Insider Preview build 14316.

It's worth noting that the pistol is the standard version of the character, as set by the Unicode Consortium. This is what is used by most Android devices and any iOS device that's not running the iOS 10 beta.

Update: An earlier version of this article referred to the standard character as a revolver, rather than a pistol.

Source: Engadget