Apple will engrave 'fart' and 'dick' on your new AirTags, but not 'poop'

Apple finally announced its Tile-killer product at Tuesday's event — and not a moment too soon, as everyone's probably a little out of practice when it comes to the whole "leaving the house with everything you need" thing after a year indoors.

AirTags are stainless steel buttons a bit over an inch in diameter that you can throw into a bag or attach to a keychain-style holder in order to track your stuff using Bluetooth and your iPhone's built-in features.

In addition to the very necessary considerations given to the potential for abuse of tracking devices, the AirTags also come with the ability to add up to four engraved characters on their front face. Now, obviously these are a handy extra way of telling your multiple AirTags apart, on top of the iPhone's pairing features. But just like Apple's other engravable products, there's also the ability to have a little fun with your personalisation. Within reason, of course.

Apple has long put limits on what they'll engrave on your shiny new gadgets — even back in 2004 you couldn't get swear words on your new iPod, and on the Chinese-language sites for Hong Kong and mainland China, there are plenty of words, names and phrases that can't be engraved.

The available characters include black (grey when engraved) and white circle symbols with letters and numbers, as well as typed characters and the same limited range of emojis: four smileys, four gestures, 13 real animals, six fictional creatures, the skull, and the iconic smiling poop. These emojis have been available on AirPod cases since early last year. 

As with AirPod case engraving, there are a few emoji combos that are out of bounds. Certain animals followed by the poop emoji are officially too rude, so you can't nickname your AirTags "horse shit", "dog shit", "pig shit" or "bull shit". (You can say "shit horse", though.) "Chicken shit", however, is fine, as are the shits of all the other non-humanoid options: alien, unicorn, ghost, robot, cat alien, skull, tiger, dragon, monkey, sheep, bunny, snake, mouse, and bear. (That last one could work: "Honey, did you lose your keys again?" "Do bears shit in the woods? Now, where's my phone?")

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Of course, you can express yourself using actual letters, too — choose from either the alphabetical symbols or just type in your chosen words. As long as those words made the list of approved character combinations, which draws some pretty bizarre lines in the shifting sands of public decency. (NB: If you don't like swearing, you're going to have a bad time for the rest of this post, so maybe tap out now.)

The classics: obviously SHIT, PISS, FUCK, and the mighty C-bomb are right out. (These are the words I say the most while I'm hunting for the stuff I always lose, because I am both disorganised and Australian, so this is something I might actually have done.) However, Apple will kindly let you cuss with a classical Latin twist: replace U with a V and FVCK and CVNT will sneak through the filter. Replacing the letter I with an exclamation point will do the same in every word I tried.

If you wish to honor your penchant for the scatological, you can engrave your AirTag with FART, BUM, BUTT, and even ANAL, as well as PEE, but not ASS, ARSE, POOP or POO. But hey, that's what the poop emoji is there for.

As for numbers, the internet's favourite integers — 69 and 420 — are both allowed. (You can even fit both within the four-character limit if you choose the "20" symbol instead of the separate 2 and 0 characters.) The most iconic middle school math class gag, however, is out: not only can you not choose BOOB as your engraving, using the symbols for "8008" is also banned. You can, however, just type in the numbers 8008 themselves. It's very weird.

If you're a Richard who goes by "Dick" or a Jiraporn whose nickname is "Porn", you might have run into trouble with language filters in the past, but you're in luck here — both are allowed. SEX, COCK, PEEN, VAG, BUSH, MUFF, PUBE, and QUIM are okay; TWAT, TITS, CLIT, JIZZ, and SLUT are not. (SLVT works, though.) 

You can declare that you're vaxed, waxed, and ready for some sax this summer with an AirTag emblazoned with DTF, WAP, or HRNY. You can! It's not illegal! Live your best mid-life crisis personalized license-plate life!

SEE ALSO: 9 horny emoji from iOS 14.2 to upgrade your sexting game (and 1 to avoid)

You can also have as many saucy Xs as you like (well, up to four), "NSFW", and even "ACAB". If you're super into Satan, good news: the devil horns emoji, S8N, HELL, and 666 are all legit options. (So is GOD, just for balance.)

LGBT and GAY are fine, as is the D-slur — but the short form of the F-slur is not. Both words have been reclaimed to varying degrees by the communities they've historically been used against, but for whatever reason, that's where Apple chose to draw the line. Several other slurs or shortened variations of their most common forms did make it through, but they are not fun words to type, let alone engrave on expensive tech products, and this post is supposed to be about fun words.

I'm not sure how many people would actually want to do that, but I do know which words I'd rather spot jangling on my neighbor's keychain. (I've reached out to Apple to clarify how the lists of banned words and character combos are decided upon.)

Will emblazoning your AirTags with (the fun kind of) filth make them any better at locating your stuff? Absolutely not. But hey, enjoying well-deployed four-letter words and Apple engraving are both free — and In These Times, if having a little magic finder button on your keys that says FART brightens your day, I say go for it.

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