Apple Restricting Use Of Special Characters In App Descriptions

Apple has reportedly started restricting special emoji-type characters for app descriptions, which limits app makers to standard text for updates that are submitted. According to a developer, Apple’s new iconography requirements were set on April 19.

With the new restriction, Apple is no longer letting developers submit app description edits with the unique character sets, which includes a checkmark, an explosion, the “no” symbol and a speech bubble. Other special characters might also be restricted, but they have yet to be verified.

Special characters like these are often used by developers to draw attention to tweaks or additional features to an app. For example, YouTube’s most recent update on April 15 used checkmarks to denote the app’s basic feature set.

Apple hasn’t specified a reason for the change, but its possible that the company wants a more unified App Store experience, so that everyone, for example, uses real bullet points insteadĀ of some using checkmarks.

Kaylie lives in Ottawa and got her first Mac in 2007 and is now a fan for life.