OTF fonts with PUA glyphs fail on iPhone iOS 11

Chris Hopkins
Chris Hopkins Posts: 7
in Font Technology

We are having a problem with iOS 11. Our academic OTF font has glyphs in the PUA E000-E0FF and the PUA-A F000-F01FF. The font previously worked well on iPhone & iPad iOS 10 and earlier, but now glyphs in PUA range are now intermixed with Emojis in the iPhone Mail app. Is anyone else experiencing similar problems? Font continues to work properly in MS Windows.

The latest version of iOS 11.3 is used. We distribute the font to iPhone/iPad using a mobileconfig file. Distribution and installation goes well as before. Installation to iOS 10 and earlier devices continue to work properly. Strangely, the font works on iOS 11 devices where previously installed and opsys upgraded to iOS 11; if font is deleted then reinstalled. the problem appears.

Somehow those damnable Emojis are somehow taking preference, but a few of our glyphs appear properly where the Apple font apparently does not have glyphs.

Any thoughts will be appreciated.

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Comments

  • SiDaniels
    SiDaniels Posts: 277
    edited April 2018
    That must be annoying. PUA = "Prohibited Unless Apple" and that goes back to the Apple logo being mapped to PUA. 
  • Chris Hopkins
    Chris Hopkins Posts: 7

    Thanks, Si. Sad part is they had it right up thru iOS 10, then went rogue... at least that's how it appears. Almost as if they think everybody wants emojis in their text. I thought the Unicode spec was handling the emojis so why is Apple up in the PUA?

    It looks like they assume if you are in the PUA, you must want an emoji no matter what font is selected....

  • SiDaniels
    SiDaniels Posts: 277
    Despite my cheeky translation of PUA I'll point my Apple font contact to this thread. My guess is that there are some emoji that are only accessible in combinations and they mapped them in the PUA to make them accessible. That's probably not a horrible idea, but only if the specified font is not over-written. 
  • SiDaniels
    SiDaniels Posts: 277
    I heard back very quickly that the issue has been logged. Hopefully something that can be resolved. :-)
  • Chris Hopkins
    Chris Hopkins Posts: 7
    Wow. Now that's fast action. Or at least notification. Thanks much, Si.
  • SiDaniels
    SiDaniels Posts: 277
    edited May 2018
    Chris, send me a repro case (SimonDa@microsoft.com) and I will pass it over to my contact. Hopefully he'll then follow up directly.

    I also learned that the PUA mappings are legacy Softbank emoji PUA mappings that Apple maintains for b/w compatibility. 

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