Emoji encyclopedia Emojipedia's entry on the pistol character suggests it will still look like a gun if you view it on most other devices and platforms. Instead of depicting it as a metal revolver, it will show the green toy water pistol. In this case, Apple is reinterpreting how it will 'read' the pistol emoji. A paper published earlier this year by researchers from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities showed how different some emoji can look across devices. Platforms like Apple, Microsoft, Samsung and Facebook decide exactly how those characters will appear on the device you're using.
