After reading the legal documents published by Microsoft and Apple, it seems that you can not use the Apple logo, Apple icon font or Windows icon or Windows icon font on your website or printed material unless they are your client. These are not permitted usages, often people ask us for this kind of situation:
Example 1: You operate a technology blog, you thought to add the Apple logo or Command icon or Windows logo inline in this kind of text “Click the Apple logo…” or “Click the Windows start icon…”
Example 2: You developed a software with GNU GPL license, you thought to add the Apple logo or Command icon or Windows logo inline in the readme.txt or some sort of documentation.
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In both example scenarios, you can not use the logos or icons or icon fonts without their permission. If you read the legal documentation of Apple here:
1 | https://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual-property/guidelinesfor3rdparties.html |
They have written that you are only allowed to use the word “Apple” (that is they say as “The Apple word mark”). Microsoft has a similar legal document:
1 | https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/Trademarks/ |
Microsoft even bans you from writing “Binging you quality search results…”. More details of their rules:
1 | https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/copyright/permissions |
“Icons may not be used in advertising, in books and other printed matter, on clothing or other promotional items, in online and Internet locations, in software applications, in television programs, in commercials, in movies, or on video.”
When you are reading this article, and still want to use this guide, you understand that you are a developer or designer or marketer working with Apple or Microsoft as your client which is the case where you may use their things when the respective brands are fully aware of what you are doing. As we are not your lawyer or their lawyer, we can not help anyone of you to protect your rights.
Technical Difficulties to Display Apple Icon, Windows Logo
In Unicode, special areas are designated as Private Use Areas (PUAs). The code points in these areas are not assigned standardized characters in Unicode. Thus, they can be used for characters defined as private, which must be individually agreed upon between the producers and users of the texts they contain. Such agreements may consist, for example, of the sharing of a font file in which such characters are provided for use.
So you can not load their font libraries on your server or CDN to render the icon. It will put you in more complicated laws.
What Are Our Ways While Working For Them
You can show inline in this way with CSS:
Watch
The code used to show the sentence with the Apple icon is:
1 | <img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Y5Eb6.png" alt="apple symbol" />Watch |
The Font Awesome kit includes the Apple logo as fa-apple:
1 | https://fontawesome.com/icons/apple?f=brands&s=solid |
If you use the SVG, it is easy to load the icon. You can copy the code for SVG from the above URL. You can render it by using HTML after loading the Font Awesome library:
Here is an example with WATCH)
1 | <p>Here is an example with <i class="fa fa-apple" aria-hidden="true" title="Apple"></i>WATCH)</p> |
The same goes with Microsoft Windows:
1 | https://fontawesome.com/icons/windows?f=brands&s=solid |
Example:
Windows 11
Disclaimer and Conclusion
We have described three ways to display the icons inline. First is by using a 16×16 image, second is by using SVG code of Font Awesome and third is using HTML code with Font Awesome library. The third method probably better.
Again, do not render these icon-fonts without their permission unless the usage is obvious for helping development like this guide.
