Unicode characters such as spade not changing colour? (objective c)

Question

So the text of my playingCardLabel is @"A \u2663"

- (IBAction)flipCardButtonTapped:(UIButton *)sender
{
    if([self.playingCardLabel.textColor isEqual:[UIColor whiteColor]])
        self.playingCardLabel.textColor = [UIColor blackColor];

    else
        self.playingCardLabel.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
}

How come when I tap the button, only the A changes to white, the spade (or whatever it is called) remains black no matter what?

Answer 1

Those symbols appear to be fixed in color. Use \U2663 for the black club (♣︎) and use \U2667 for the white club (♧). There are similar black or white version of the spade, heart, and diamond.

Answer 2

create image from symbol of unicode using your colour. use UIImageView instead UILabel, or use UILabel with NSAttributedString + NSTextAttachment (image inside).

@implementation NSString (OSExt)

- (UIImage *)toImageWithAttributes:(NSDictionary*)attributes
{
    CGSize size  = [self sizeWithAttributes:attributes];
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(size, NO, 0.0);
    [self drawAtPoint:CGPointZero withAttributes:attributes];
    CGContextRef imgctx = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
    // use blend mode to fill symbols like @"♣︎"
    CGContextSetBlendMode(imgctx, kCGBlendModeSourceAtop);
    CGContextSetFillColorWithColor(imgctx, [attributes[NSForegroundColorAttributeName] CGColor]);
    CGContextFillRect(imgctx, (CGRect){CGPointZero, size});
    UIImage *image = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
    UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
    return image;
}

@end

// use 
id attrs = @{NSForegroundColorAttributeName:[UIColor greenColor]};
UIImage *image = [@"♣︎" toImageWithAttributes:attrs];