Apple restricts offensive AirTag engravings, including emoji combinations

As is Apple's wont, the company is restricting customers from engraving AirTag with potentially offensive text or emoji characters, lest the unwashed masses sully its sterling reputation.

Like other Apple products, AirTag can be custom engraved from the factory for easy identification. The option is a welcome addition for a device that will likely find its way onto a variety of commonly lost items, from bags to keychains.

AirTag is big enough to accommodate up to three emoji or four text characters, but as The Verge points out, Apple restricts users from deemed inappropriate content. For example, a horse with a "pile of poo" emoji is prohibited, while other animal-poo combinations are allowed.

Four-letter expletives, derogatory terms and other questionable text are similarly blocked.

The same restrictions have applied to Apple's free engraving service for years, but the policy could surprise those who have yet to use the service. Considering AirTag's relatively low price and use case, more people are likely to have the device engraved with a special mark to claim ownership or denote a specific tracked item.

Prospective buyers can preview engravings on Apple's AirTag purchase page.

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14 Comments

newisneverenough

said about 3 years ago

“... lest the unwashed masses sully its sterling reputation”

yup.

22july2013

said about 3 years ago

AppleInsider said:

AirTag is big enough to accommodate up to three emoji or four text characters,

Four-letter expletives, derogatory terms and other questionable text are similarly blocked.

I had no trouble getting four emojis. Emojis come in different widths and you must have been trying the wide ones. Try the narrower ones, like the first four. You can always fit the first four, apparently because they are narrower than most of the others.

If you try a single emoji with four narrow letters like "iiii" it rejects that even though it's more than narrow enough to fit. So there is a hard limit of four characters even if they fit.

I also had no trouble fitting my 7-digit telephone number (without area code) using three double digit emojis and a single digit emoji. Some phone numbers may not be choosable because there are no two digit numbers above 50, but a little creativity with single digit emojis can sometimes fix that. That would take too long to explain here. But if we all agree that a black emoji number represents the same number "+50" then any 8 digit number can be displayed. That gives 100,000,000 possible numeric values. Let's all agree on that (ie, that black digit pairs represent the number 50 above its apparent value.)

If you are able to put your 7 digit phone number on it, and someone finds your lost AirTag, and they realize that that's your phone number on there, then you won't even have to put your device into "Lost Mode" and they will still be able to contact you. As long as you lost your device in the same area code as they found it.

Rayz2016

said about 3 years ago

22july2013 said:

AppleInsider said:

AirTag is big enough to accommodate up to three emoji or four text characters,

Four-letter expletives, derogatory terms and other questionable text are similarly blocked.

If you are able to put your 7 digit phone number on it, and someone finds your lost AirTag, and they realize that that's your phone number on there, then you won't even have to put your device into "Lost Mode" and they will still be able to contact you. As long as you lost your device in the same area code as they found it.

Clever.