Why Your iPhone Adds Annoying Typos While Fixing Others
April 30, 2022 7:46 AM Subscribe
Tpying truble? During the iPhone’s first 15 years, its keyboard software has evolved, but it still sometimes flubs your lines. Here’s how it works and what you can do about it.
(archive.today link)
"duck boots", lol.
I don't know the state of things on iOS but voice typing on Android with a modern phone is freaking amazing. Google stuffed the voice recognition model into the phone itself so everything runs locally. Which means very fast and interactive. And with a new phone (I have a Pixel 6) the hardware is powerful enough to really understand what I'm saying enough to be my primary mode of entering text. It makes a lot less errors than the swipe and text inference stuff the WSJ article is talking about. The only drawback is when it does make a mistake it tends to be a much more semantically complex and confusing mistake. Not just homonyms but weird non-sequiturs where it goes down the wrong grammatical path and two, three words at a time will be wrong.
Just for fun I dictated that last paragraph to my Pixel 6 in a normal speaking cadence. Here it is, unedited.
posted by Nelson at 8:03 AM on April 30, 2022 [9 favorites]
I don't know the state of things on iOS but voice typing on Android with a modern phone is freaking amazing. Google stuffed the voice recognition model into the phone itself so everything runs locally. Which means very fast and interactive. And with a new phone (I have a Pixel 6) the hardware is powerful enough to really understand what I'm saying enough to be my primary mode of entering text. It makes a lot less errors than the swipe and text inference stuff the WSJ article is talking about. The only drawback is when it does make a mistake it tends to be a much more semantically complex and confusing mistake. Not just homonyms but weird non-sequiturs where it goes down the wrong grammatical path and two, three words at a time will be wrong.
Just for fun I dictated that last paragraph to my Pixel 6 in a normal speaking cadence. Here it is, unedited.
I don't know the state of things on iOS, but voice typing on Android with a modern phone is freaking amazing. Google stuffed the voice recognition model into the phone itself, so everything runs locally which means very fast and interactive and with a new phone I have a pixel 6. The hardware is powerful enough to really understand what I'm saying enough to be my primary mode of entering text. It makes a lot less errors than the swipe and text different stuff. The WSJ article is talking about. The only drawback is when it does make a mistake. It tends to be a much more semantically complex and confusing mistake. Not just homonyms but weird non sequiturs where it goes down. The wrong grammatical path and two, three words at a time will be wrongPretty amazing right? The main error is its inference of where sentence breaks are. That's a relatively new feature, in older iterations you had to speak the word "period" but now it guesses where they belong.
posted by Nelson at 8:03 AM on April 30, 2022 [9 favorites]
I type by swiping. I don't understand why anyone would type with two thumbs when they could do it faster with one.
Except that, whenever I type the name "Elena", it always corrects it to "Ellen's". I don't know an Ellen. There's no Ellen in my contacts. I have not added "Ellen" to my dictionary, as I have Elena.
The only solution I've found is to tap individual letters with my thumbs, like a barbarian, for just that one word.
posted by gurple at 8:04 AM on April 30, 2022 [9 favorites]
Except that, whenever I type the name "Elena", it always corrects it to "Ellen's". I don't know an Ellen. There's no Ellen in my contacts. I have not added "Ellen" to my dictionary, as I have Elena.
The only solution I've found is to tap individual letters with my thumbs, like a barbarian, for just that one word.
posted by gurple at 8:04 AM on April 30, 2022 [9 favorites]
What you can do: Type your ducking curse words correctly. You can also add them to that Text Replacement database. My trick? I entered my favorite profanities as contacts in my address book.
That is ducking hilarious!
posted by amanda at 8:05 AM on April 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
That is ducking hilarious!
posted by amanda at 8:05 AM on April 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
The iOS autocorrect and text predictor fucking sucks. It often can't even correct or suggest a fix for a common word with one incorrect letter. Add that to its inability to place a cursor in the middle of a word and I am frustrated every time I try to type on my iPad or iPhone. Voice to text is also shit. My Android phone was so much better at all of these things. In fact, I think the main reason I get so angry with iOS is because I came to it after using Android phones for years, and expected the same ease of use and just plain common sense of Android operating systems.
posted by Stoof at 8:29 AM on April 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Stoof at 8:29 AM on April 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
There is GBoard for iOS which lets you use a Google swipe keyboard. I don't know how limited it is on Apple's platform compared to a proper Android phone with Google keyboard integrated. One big reason I switched to Android was wanting a keyboard that worked better. GBoard on iOS does have voice typing but it has to send it to Google's servers for processing, so it's going to be less responsive than on a modern Android device.
posted by Nelson at 8:37 AM on April 30, 2022
posted by Nelson at 8:37 AM on April 30, 2022
I type by swiping. I don't understand why anyone would type with two thumbs when they could do it faster with one.
My partner is a swipe-typer and the error level in his texts/tweets/posts is fully 60% higher than in my two-thumb typing. This doesn't bother him -- he just lets the things go out riddled with typos -- but as an editorial type, I simply cannot abide spending that much more time editing my stuff after the fact. Better the annoyance of overcoming the smaller number of glitches as they arise.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:41 AM on April 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
My partner is a swipe-typer and the error level in his texts/tweets/posts is fully 60% higher than in my two-thumb typing. This doesn't bother him -- he just lets the things go out riddled with typos -- but as an editorial type, I simply cannot abide spending that much more time editing my stuff after the fact. Better the annoyance of overcoming the smaller number of glitches as they arise.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:41 AM on April 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
I type by swiping. I don't understand why anyone would type with two thumbs when they could do it faster with one.
My partner is a swipe-typer and the error level in his texts/tweets/posts is fully 60% higher than in my two-thumb typing.
I've been an iPhone user since 2011. I've tried to switch to swipe-typing twice (once before it was officially supported on iOS, so using a third-party app, and once after it became an officially supported option) because I thought in theory I would prefer it in the same way that I switched to T9 texting and never looked back.
In practice, I have found that swipe typing produces incorrect words at a higher rate than thumb typing. I am particularly highly aggravated by the experience of going through the "swiping > wrong word > erasing > swiping again > a different yet still wrong word" cycle 3 or 4 times and never getting the right word -- I usually just give up and type it once, correctly, with my thumbs.
I also have an iPhone 13 mini and have a preference for smaller phones, and wonder if I'd get different results on a larger phone, where presumably (I'm guessing) the swiping algorithm would be better at differentiating between similar words.
That being said I still do keep it on, because if I am typing one-handed I do find it faster than one-thumbed typing (even with the "one handed compressed keyboard" option that's available). But when I have two hands available, which is usually most of the time, then I've found that I strongly prefer thumbed typing.
posted by andrewesque at 8:57 AM on April 30, 2022
My partner is a swipe-typer and the error level in his texts/tweets/posts is fully 60% higher than in my two-thumb typing.
I've been an iPhone user since 2011. I've tried to switch to swipe-typing twice (once before it was officially supported on iOS, so using a third-party app, and once after it became an officially supported option) because I thought in theory I would prefer it in the same way that I switched to T9 texting and never looked back.
In practice, I have found that swipe typing produces incorrect words at a higher rate than thumb typing. I am particularly highly aggravated by the experience of going through the "swiping > wrong word > erasing > swiping again > a different yet still wrong word" cycle 3 or 4 times and never getting the right word -- I usually just give up and type it once, correctly, with my thumbs.
I also have an iPhone 13 mini and have a preference for smaller phones, and wonder if I'd get different results on a larger phone, where presumably (I'm guessing) the swiping algorithm would be better at differentiating between similar words.
That being said I still do keep it on, because if I am typing one-handed I do find it faster than one-thumbed typing (even with the "one handed compressed keyboard" option that's available). But when I have two hands available, which is usually most of the time, then I've found that I strongly prefer thumbed typing.
posted by andrewesque at 8:57 AM on April 30, 2022
I've found the swipe typing to be very inaccurate on short words but also very accurate and much faster when typing longer words, meaning words with five or more letters. So I just thumb type my prepositions and articles and pronouns and swipe the rest.
posted by zixyer at 9:11 AM on April 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by zixyer at 9:11 AM on April 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Thanks very much for sharing this article and all these useful tips. I was the only one still plagued by this!
BTW, in case anyone else sees a version of the article covered by popups on the archive link, here is another one.
posted by rpfields at 9:12 AM on April 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
BTW, in case anyone else sees a version of the article covered by popups on the archive link, here is another one.
posted by rpfields at 9:12 AM on April 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
I would love a physical keyboard on my iDevice. I would totally be willing to give up fully 1/4 to 1/3 of the exaggerated vertical screen space to get it, too. And a click-wheel on the side. In fact just give me a RIM 957 form factor but a little taller and thinner. That was the perfect device. Would be willing to compromise on a slide-up screen that reveals a keyboard for a device that's slightly thicker (also leaves room for more battery). Sigh.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:25 AM on April 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:25 AM on April 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
That being said I still do keep it on, because if I am typing one-handed I do find it faster than one-thumbed typing (even with the "one handed compressed keyboard" option that's available). But when I have two hands available, which is usually most of the time, then I've found that I strongly prefer thumbed typing.
Maybe it is because my hands are large, but I've never been able to make two-thumb typing work on my phone. I swipe except for words that swiping gets wrong, which get tapped out with one thumb.
The autocorrect mostly works ok for me, but it does have repeated minor errors that seem to be just baked into how it works. Like, with names, it will often autocorrect that to a possessive ("Mike's" instead of "Mike"), and almost always does that when it is a less common name that needed to be added to the system.
The voice to text feature works fairly ok for me (repeated errors like "were" instead of "are" aside), but doesn't work well in the car which is exactly when I would most like it to work.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:28 AM on April 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Maybe it is because my hands are large, but I've never been able to make two-thumb typing work on my phone. I swipe except for words that swiping gets wrong, which get tapped out with one thumb.
The autocorrect mostly works ok for me, but it does have repeated minor errors that seem to be just baked into how it works. Like, with names, it will often autocorrect that to a possessive ("Mike's" instead of "Mike"), and almost always does that when it is a less common name that needed to be added to the system.
The voice to text feature works fairly ok for me (repeated errors like "were" instead of "are" aside), but doesn't work well in the car which is exactly when I would most like it to work.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:28 AM on April 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
It is quite clear to me that the more aggressive autocorrect is worse - particularly in that it will now change a word into a completely different word when you finish typing it and hit space to move on. It is no longer enough to look at every letter you type, you must now also look back at words previous to the one in your sentence to see if autocorrect decided it knew better than you after you had finished typing. That, and I never use the word 'yo' but autocorrect has determined that I usually include in sentences such as "I am going to yo store" and "I want yo do that". I wish I could just get a less aggressive option which didn't change totally valid English words I had typed into others just because my vocabulary isn't mapping 1-1 to the average internet user.
posted by meinvt at 9:39 AM on April 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by meinvt at 9:39 AM on April 30, 2022 [10 favorites]
I also type on the iPhone by swiping, and I dearly, dearly wish that it were better because, in theory, it's an amazing idea. In my case, I get "Tyler" for "the" about 30% of the time ... and "the" is such a ducking common word that it's SUPER annoying. Lately, I've been getting "Durant" for "doesn't" a bunch, too. I do not have a "Tyler" or "Durant" in my contacts, and I don't believe I have ever typed those words explicitly. I sincerely hope that they one day add an option to remove words from the dynamic dictionary, though I realize it's probably not that easy given all the magic AI stuff going on.
posted by majorsteel at 9:41 AM on April 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by majorsteel at 9:41 AM on April 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
Oh autocorrect. For some reason on my computer it’s decided that every time I type “self-dual polyhedra” (which I do fairly often for a paper I’m writing) that it autocorrects to “Self-Dual Polyhedra”. It’s driving me bananas, and the usual suspects of how to stop it autocorrecting a single word haven’t helped so far. And I have no idea how it got it into its head that this is the desired behavior, and it’s super annoying that there’s not an easy way to fix it/tell it it’s learned something incorrectly.
(Having said that, autocorrect has fixed at least a dozen typos correctly in this single comment! So overall I appreciate it, I just wish I could help it become even better.)
posted by leahwrenn at 10:00 AM on April 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
(Having said that, autocorrect has fixed at least a dozen typos correctly in this single comment! So overall I appreciate it, I just wish I could help it become even better.)
posted by leahwrenn at 10:00 AM on April 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
I've been two-thumb typing since I carried an Inter@tive 950 full time. I wrote, I kid you not, 750 to 1000 word documents on that thing. My Treo 650's keyboard wasn't as good, although it was a little better than the Graffiti I had to do in the little resistive touch area of my earlier Palm devices. When I switched to the iPhone 1 it was a little awkward just getting used to capacitive touch keyboards at all. I got used to it, though, and was pretty happy with things at that point. This all broke down in three places somewhat recently:
Somewhere around iOS 11, I forget exactly when, the default keyboard layout changed to make the left shift key smaller, putting the number shift right where I'd been hitting. This got a little worse in subsequent versions of the OS where auto-aim seemed to favor the goddamned emoji shift and number shift more. Can't say I was happy about the rearrangement of the symbol keyboard either, but I sort of got used to it. The public ML dictionary offered some bogus corrections at this point to some extent.
Then somewhere around, I dunno, iOS 13 maybe? the selection weight of the public ML dictionary increased beyond some kind of tipping point. For the first time, I found correctly spelled words being replaced with other correctly spelled but incorrectly selected words, particularly as the failtastic contextual ML kicked in to go back and duck words I'd already completed. At this point I dislike the keyboard layout, am bitter that the split keyboard is no longer a thing on tablets, and getting aggravated by active interference in my typing.
I then picked up an Apple Watch, which has a sort of letter by letter handwriting recognition. I hand write in a sort of highly-sans, non-slanted but otherwise italic stroke style which ought to be pretty readable by computers. The problem is my brain makes me write Graffiti into the thing and it doesn't recognize shit.
So, yeah, Apple touch-based textual input methods are not really doing it for me any more. There was a sweet spot of several years where the whole system was fucking perfect and then it degraded even more than the decline of my fine motor skills would suggest.
posted by majick at 10:05 AM on April 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Somewhere around iOS 11, I forget exactly when, the default keyboard layout changed to make the left shift key smaller, putting the number shift right where I'd been hitting. This got a little worse in subsequent versions of the OS where auto-aim seemed to favor the goddamned emoji shift and number shift more. Can't say I was happy about the rearrangement of the symbol keyboard either, but I sort of got used to it. The public ML dictionary offered some bogus corrections at this point to some extent.
Then somewhere around, I dunno, iOS 13 maybe? the selection weight of the public ML dictionary increased beyond some kind of tipping point. For the first time, I found correctly spelled words being replaced with other correctly spelled but incorrectly selected words, particularly as the failtastic contextual ML kicked in to go back and duck words I'd already completed. At this point I dislike the keyboard layout, am bitter that the split keyboard is no longer a thing on tablets, and getting aggravated by active interference in my typing.
I then picked up an Apple Watch, which has a sort of letter by letter handwriting recognition. I hand write in a sort of highly-sans, non-slanted but otherwise italic stroke style which ought to be pretty readable by computers. The problem is my brain makes me write Graffiti into the thing and it doesn't recognize shit.
So, yeah, Apple touch-based textual input methods are not really doing it for me any more. There was a sweet spot of several years where the whole system was fucking perfect and then it degraded even more than the decline of my fine motor skills would suggest.
posted by majick at 10:05 AM on April 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
I spent a month or two using BDSM honorifics with someone I was dating and now, a full year (and a new phone) later, iOS still thinks I want to drop them regularly into all of my conversations.
posted by dephlogisticated at 10:33 AM on April 30, 2022 [20 favorites]
posted by dephlogisticated at 10:33 AM on April 30, 2022 [20 favorites]
I am not, nor ever have been, a conifer enthusiast, but my iPhone thinks it's being cute by replacing the common English conjunction "for" with "fir." Every single time. WHY.
Not even to mention "were" becoming "we're" and "well" becoming "we'll." My best guess is that my phone listened to me ranting about how much I hate apostrophes in error and now throws these in as a joke.
posted by knotty knots at 10:43 AM on April 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
Not even to mention "were" becoming "we're" and "well" becoming "we'll." My best guess is that my phone listened to me ranting about how much I hate apostrophes in error and now throws these in as a joke.
posted by knotty knots at 10:43 AM on April 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'm a word-shape reader, not an individual letter reader. Could and Coudl look pretty similar to me when I'm writing. That is to say I won't easily recognize the misspelling on review. Combined with a family prediliction for dyslexia, this is a very common sort of error for me when typing.
I have gotten a few of them into my various dynamic dictionaries over the years. That's one of my greatest hesitations with the technology as I can see the misspelling lines clearly, but can't self-correct these errors. My own past mistakes with autocorrect haunt my writing.
I periodically do root through my autocorrect dictionaries. It's always surprising and rather embarrassing to find what I've mistakenly allowed as a proper spelling in my dysfunction with the tech.
posted by bonehead at 10:48 AM on April 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
I have gotten a few of them into my various dynamic dictionaries over the years. That's one of my greatest hesitations with the technology as I can see the misspelling lines clearly, but can't self-correct these errors. My own past mistakes with autocorrect haunt my writing.
I periodically do root through my autocorrect dictionaries. It's always surprising and rather embarrassing to find what I've mistakenly allowed as a proper spelling in my dysfunction with the tech.
posted by bonehead at 10:48 AM on April 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
Mistakes like for/fir or we're/were sound like the iPhone typing still has no grammatical model nor consideration of words in context. Is that really true in 2022? Apple is usually pretty on the ball for this kind of thing, the machine learning isn't that hard!
If you're suck with iOS do give GBoard a try. It was better than Apple's keyboard a few years ago, not sure now. If you're concerned about surveillance capitalism, GBoard does have options to turn off data sharing.
posted by Nelson at 10:49 AM on April 30, 2022
If you're suck with iOS do give GBoard a try. It was better than Apple's keyboard a few years ago, not sure now. If you're concerned about surveillance capitalism, GBoard does have options to turn off data sharing.
posted by Nelson at 10:49 AM on April 30, 2022
I type by swiping. I don't understand why anyone would type with two thumbs when they could do it faster with one.
I can't get the hang of either swiping or typing with two thumbs. I learned to touch type on a regular keyboard years ago so I can only find the letters by the muscle memory of my 10 fingers.
My daughter just about shit herself laughing the first time she saw me type on my phone. I hold it close to my face with one hand so I can see, leaving me one finger with which to poke at the letters. I rely on predictive text a LOT. I prefer chatting over messenger so I can type on the big-girl keyboard. This works out pretty well since I'm generally on the computer all day for work and all evening because I have no life.
My husband learned to type using two fingers (he's super fast, from gaming he says) so he is more aware of the position of letters on the keyboard. He swipes on the phone.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 10:50 AM on April 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
I can't get the hang of either swiping or typing with two thumbs. I learned to touch type on a regular keyboard years ago so I can only find the letters by the muscle memory of my 10 fingers.
My daughter just about shit herself laughing the first time she saw me type on my phone. I hold it close to my face with one hand so I can see, leaving me one finger with which to poke at the letters. I rely on predictive text a LOT. I prefer chatting over messenger so I can type on the big-girl keyboard. This works out pretty well since I'm generally on the computer all day for work and all evening because I have no life.
My husband learned to type using two fingers (he's super fast, from gaming he says) so he is more aware of the position of letters on the keyboard. He swipes on the phone.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 10:50 AM on April 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
The Palm Pixi had the best keyboard. A compact, physical keyboard with tapered keys so large fingers didn't accidentally mash the key next to it.
I find the touchscreen keyboard frustrating on Android, and mostly avoid the swipe interface. It seems like there's a lot of effort being put in to making these things better, when a superior option already exists, we're just not given the choice of supporting it.
Shit, even T9 was pretty brilliant, but no more buttons on smartphones so we can't do that either. What was the problem with buttons? More points of failure? Is that such a problem when they'd already like us to buy a new phone every year?
posted by jellywerker at 11:13 AM on April 30, 2022
I find the touchscreen keyboard frustrating on Android, and mostly avoid the swipe interface. It seems like there's a lot of effort being put in to making these things better, when a superior option already exists, we're just not given the choice of supporting it.
Shit, even T9 was pretty brilliant, but no more buttons on smartphones so we can't do that either. What was the problem with buttons? More points of failure? Is that such a problem when they'd already like us to buy a new phone every year?
posted by jellywerker at 11:13 AM on April 30, 2022
SOMETHING is a word, Apple. It's an actual word. Some things has a different use. It's maddening.
At least if I use voice, I can get fucking without it changing to ducking in Apple's Good Place-style nannyism.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 11:20 AM on April 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
At least if I use voice, I can get fucking without it changing to ducking in Apple's Good Place-style nannyism.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 11:20 AM on April 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
...iPhone typing still has no grammatical model nor consideration of words in context[?]"
I have no access to the code but it really feels like there are multiple code paths in multiple different frameworks and they're not sharing models. You have a contextual predictive model that's not too bad at all given a few input letters, presented as predictive selections. You have correction that fires on a space bar event that looks in static, dynamic, user defined, and public ML dictionaries with a heuristic that is entirely different.
Recently, a look-back was introduced to correct prior words during space bar events, which is based on subsequent word input and the model it was trained on is complete fucking garbage. This may be Apple's attempt at contextual correction and it straight up has never produced an improvement for me at any time it has fired.
Then on top of that, if you select a word in a text input UI element to spell check it, you get manual spell checking with one of two different UI interaction models: highlighted misspellings can be tapped for a suggestion, sometimes, occasionally, if the highlight is red. At other times the word has to be selected with text selection and the standard selection popup bar is presented and the "Replace" entry has to be selected. These use, as far as I can tell, the operating system dictionary rather than any of the code paths in the keyboard application.
Occasionally, the system correction pops up during text entry mid-word. At other times the autocorrect bubble appears. This seems to be timing-dependent.
Apple is getting really bad at software.
posted by majick at 11:27 AM on April 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
I have no access to the code but it really feels like there are multiple code paths in multiple different frameworks and they're not sharing models. You have a contextual predictive model that's not too bad at all given a few input letters, presented as predictive selections. You have correction that fires on a space bar event that looks in static, dynamic, user defined, and public ML dictionaries with a heuristic that is entirely different.
Recently, a look-back was introduced to correct prior words during space bar events, which is based on subsequent word input and the model it was trained on is complete fucking garbage. This may be Apple's attempt at contextual correction and it straight up has never produced an improvement for me at any time it has fired.
Then on top of that, if you select a word in a text input UI element to spell check it, you get manual spell checking with one of two different UI interaction models: highlighted misspellings can be tapped for a suggestion, sometimes, occasionally, if the highlight is red. At other times the word has to be selected with text selection and the standard selection popup bar is presented and the "Replace" entry has to be selected. These use, as far as I can tell, the operating system dictionary rather than any of the code paths in the keyboard application.
Occasionally, the system correction pops up during text entry mid-word. At other times the autocorrect bubble appears. This seems to be timing-dependent.
Apple is getting really bad at software.
posted by majick at 11:27 AM on April 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
Recognizing this is an out of touch old person thing to say, this post made me figure out swipe typing on my iPhone enough to properly try it. (I did not realize before that you don’t have to hit space after each word.) It’ll take some getting used to but wow, it DOES seem much faster.
posted by jameaterblues at 11:32 AM on April 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by jameaterblues at 11:32 AM on April 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
i live 400 miles from any navigable waterway, lake, sea, or ocean, and yet the stupid thing consistently changes my swiped "morning" to "mooring"
like at this point i've attempted to type "morning" probably a thousand times, and have never once texted to someone about tying up a boat, for fucking sake
posted by glonous keming at 11:41 AM on April 30, 2022 [12 favorites]
like at this point i've attempted to type "morning" probably a thousand times, and have never once texted to someone about tying up a boat, for fucking sake
posted by glonous keming at 11:41 AM on April 30, 2022 [12 favorites]
This article fails to explain how autocorrect sometimes suggests letter combinations that I have never used even once. "By the third time you type an unknown word, the software will typically add it to the dynamic dictionary and stop trying to turn it into something different, said Mr. Kocienda and others." Yeah, how about by the zeroth time. I think I usually make it about three years before the gibberish gets so annoying that I wipe out the dynamic dictionary and start over.
posted by fedward at 11:47 AM on April 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by fedward at 11:47 AM on April 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
It would be great if autocorrect would signal that it's been applied by giving a quick haptic buzz. Too many times I've been autocorrected incorrectly without noticing it.
posted by ShooBoo at 11:56 AM on April 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by ShooBoo at 11:56 AM on April 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
I moved to iPhone for a specific app. Typing and swipe-typing on my Android was far easier and more accurate. In case anyone thinks this is an invitation to OS warz, I recognize that the iPhone is built very well, has good battery life, will get updates for a long time. But I miss my Android.
posted by theora55 at 12:05 PM on April 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 12:05 PM on April 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
I use iOS in two languages, and spellcheck is utterly unusable in my second language. Added to that I’ve now got a bunch of common second-language words in my dictionary so I am forever having the wrong words in the wrong language suggested at the wrong time…
I’d like to say “lots of people are bilingual, and it would be nice if this works”, but it appears that iOS can’t cope with just using English. It’s definitely got worse since iOS 13, but I think Apple are too busy counting their huge piles of money to fix these problems
posted by The River Ivel at 12:57 PM on April 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
I’d like to say “lots of people are bilingual, and it would be nice if this works”, but it appears that iOS can’t cope with just using English. It’s definitely got worse since iOS 13, but I think Apple are too busy counting their huge piles of money to fix these problems
posted by The River Ivel at 12:57 PM on April 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
I wish someone would port Palm's Graffiti handwriting software to iOS. Nothing since has come close for ease of use and accuracy.
posted by hank at 1:18 PM on April 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by hank at 1:18 PM on April 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
I just had a conversation with someone about how AC has decided that I prefer the majestic "soeaking" to the plebeian spelling "speaking". If it comes through spelled in the mundane spelling, it means that I have retyped the word at least three times.
Along similar lines, AC has decided that I never, ever, ever want to type the word "of", only the word "if". Sure, go for it, AC.
posted by past unusual at 1:52 PM on April 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Along similar lines, AC has decided that I never, ever, ever want to type the word "of", only the word "if". Sure, go for it, AC.
posted by past unusual at 1:52 PM on April 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
I have nothing useful to say here, except that I manually entered “autocorrupt” into my preferences for “autocorrect,” so the latter requires significant effort to type, while the former peppers my writing (all of which is done on iOS devices since I retired almost three years ago).
Well, perhaps I do. IOS also changed the location of the keyboards button in iOS 15, and added a “switch to Russian” key where the undo used to be, because I have the Russian keyboard installed for when I need to type Cyrillic characters. These two changes had me holding onto iOS 14.8.1 until I bought a new iPad which must run iOS 15, which I continue to hate.
posted by DaveP at 1:54 PM on April 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Well, perhaps I do. IOS also changed the location of the keyboards button in iOS 15, and added a “switch to Russian” key where the undo used to be, because I have the Russian keyboard installed for when I need to type Cyrillic characters. These two changes had me holding onto iOS 14.8.1 until I bought a new iPad which must run iOS 15, which I continue to hate.
posted by DaveP at 1:54 PM on April 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Pre-smartphone, I had a Motorola flip phone with quite good predictive text. I don't understand why I can't have nice things.
posted by theora55 at 2:01 PM on April 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 2:01 PM on April 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
If you look at my comments on MetaFilter you should be able to easily see when I switch to an iPhone this year (with the caveat that I also write in from a desktop computer). The autocorrect look back and auto-apply really messes me up.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 2:07 PM on April 30, 2022
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 2:07 PM on April 30, 2022
I miss the correct key and hit the neighboring key in the majority of my typos. I wish autocorrect took the keyboard layout into their algorithm. Spellcheck too.
posted by tlwright at 2:24 PM on April 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by tlwright at 2:24 PM on April 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
I switched to iPhone last fall, and honestly, if it weren't for Apple's "do not track" setting, years of security updates, and the Mini's perfect size, I'd be back on Android by now (also, FaceID is amazing). The problem is, one of the reasons Google does so much better on this stuff compared to Apple (and one reason I've been trying to move to Apple) is Google data mines the hell out of you. Anyway, as for Gboard on iOS, it works, but if you have a password manager it pops the Apple keyboard up any time there's a password field, so it's of limited use.
posted by dirigibleman at 4:33 PM on April 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by dirigibleman at 4:33 PM on April 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
I still hate two thumb typing on a touchscreen. The lack of tactile feedback to tell you when you done fucked up is maddening. Swiping is somewhat better, but I'd really like my physical keyboards back. Problem is that the only companies making smartphones with physical keyboards now can't get the balance right, so the damn things want to fly out of your hand.
Everything has been downhill since the Nokia E71 in terms of text entry. That thing had the best keyboard ever put on a smartphone.
posted by wierdo at 5:02 PM on April 30, 2022
Everything has been downhill since the Nokia E71 in terms of text entry. That thing had the best keyboard ever put on a smartphone.
posted by wierdo at 5:02 PM on April 30, 2022
If I were responsible for iOS’s autowreck I would change my name, not give an interview. I had drafted a screed in reply and some mis-press discarded the window I was composing it in. It was some “gesture” on the iPad keyboard, not clicking the “close window” in the bar. The mere fact that this is possible by default should make a Pill (my constant usage for “Apple” in memory of autowreck) is a triumph of “UX” over usability.
Whoever said apple is getting really bad at software: amen, brother. “Just works” has morphed into “usually breaks randomly” since Jobs’ passing.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 5:48 PM on April 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
Whoever said apple is getting really bad at software: amen, brother. “Just works” has morphed into “usually breaks randomly” since Jobs’ passing.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 5:48 PM on April 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
Someone I knew (not me) meant to send a text saying "remember when I watched you and XYZ fucking" but sent it to his finance who wasn't as kinky, who promptly replied "I don't think this was meant for me".
His phone had auto-corrected, and he was able to lie his way out because autocratic didn't like cursing and he said he was reminiscing with his daughter about the time he took her with friend swimming and there was a lot of ducking going on.
I personally doubt she believed the story but they've been happily married for over 5 years.
posted by b33j at 6:11 PM on April 30, 2022
His phone had auto-corrected, and he was able to lie his way out because autocratic didn't like cursing and he said he was reminiscing with his daughter about the time he took her with friend swimming and there was a lot of ducking going on.
I personally doubt she believed the story but they've been happily married for over 5 years.
posted by b33j at 6:11 PM on April 30, 2022
I'm leaving in the autocorrect errors because topical.
posted by b33j at 6:12 PM on April 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by b33j at 6:12 PM on April 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
easily see when I switch to an iPhone this year
That, of course, was supposed to say "switched to an iPhone."
Another problem I never had on Android.
Sent from my iPhone.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 8:13 PM on April 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
That, of course, was supposed to say "switched to an iPhone."
Another problem I never had on Android.
Sent from my iPhone.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 8:13 PM on April 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
I recently switched to an iPhone after trying the new keyboard swiping for iOS. I found it much more reliable at interpreting what i wanted to say compared to my pixel, so it’s interesting to see all these comments praising the Android experience over iOS. I find that the iPhone does both forms of input better: it more reliably registers the key i wanted to press when manually typing, and it infers the intended word better for me than Android when swiping. Bizarre!
posted by dis_integration at 9:36 PM on April 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by dis_integration at 9:36 PM on April 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
I use Microsoft SwiftKey (swipe) on iOS. There's also an Android version and your personal dictionary gets saved to the cloud and moves with you across devices where it's installed. It's... fine!
posted by Dokterrock at 11:03 PM on April 30, 2022
posted by Dokterrock at 11:03 PM on April 30, 2022
I once typed "Xxxtentacion".
~4 years and a new phone later Apple's autocorrect still occasionally tricks me into signing off text messages to my wife with that dead rappers name.
posted by tomp at 1:41 AM on May 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
~4 years and a new phone later Apple's autocorrect still occasionally tricks me into signing off text messages to my wife with that dead rappers name.
posted by tomp at 1:41 AM on May 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
Yesterday, my iPhone changed "protest" to "priest," leaving my sisters wondering why my priest was refusing to vote for condo board members. What seems odd to me is the way very common words get changed to something completely different. Also, my phone refuses to let me leave "whole foods" uncapitalized, though I'm much more likely to be writing about the concept than the store.
I'm also an old person who types with one finger because two-thumb typing seems impossible. Had never heard of swiping, so now I'll try to figure out what that is.
posted by FencingGal at 5:39 AM on May 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm also an old person who types with one finger because two-thumb typing seems impossible. Had never heard of swiping, so now I'll try to figure out what that is.
posted by FencingGal at 5:39 AM on May 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
I had a blackberry, one of the last ones that was more like a regular smartphone (no keyboard) but before they went to Android. The word prediction was great, it learned phrases I use a lot.
Even better, as you typed, predicted words would show up above the next letter in that word. Not at the top of the keyboard. So instead of looking at the keyboard, then above it, then back for each letter, you just kept typing and when the word you wanted appeared where you were already looking, you flicked it up. So fast, so easy. How has this not appeared as something I can download? I would pay to have it back.
posted by sepviva at 6:47 AM on May 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
Even better, as you typed, predicted words would show up above the next letter in that word. Not at the top of the keyboard. So instead of looking at the keyboard, then above it, then back for each letter, you just kept typing and when the word you wanted appeared where you were already looking, you flicked it up. So fast, so easy. How has this not appeared as something I can download? I would pay to have it back.
posted by sepviva at 6:47 AM on May 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
I would pay to have it back.
In theory, this is how Apple's prediction bubble -- distinct from the prediction bar above the keyboard -- works. When the word you want shows in the small white bubble near the cursor then you merely have to hit the space bar and keep going. Don't even need to flick upward.
In practice, this more or less doesn't work for anyone. The prediction/correction bubble, once regularly a part of the UI, now only appears if the keyboard judges the need for correction is imminent. Its notion of the need for correction is opaque and unpredictable and prediction is nearly never offered, having been banished to the prediction bar.
Long story short, we used to have this, too, on iOS, and it too is a victim of Apple's software team siloing and decline from an engineering company to a Justify Your Existence tech company.
posted by majick at 7:33 AM on May 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
In theory, this is how Apple's prediction bubble -- distinct from the prediction bar above the keyboard -- works. When the word you want shows in the small white bubble near the cursor then you merely have to hit the space bar and keep going. Don't even need to flick upward.
In practice, this more or less doesn't work for anyone. The prediction/correction bubble, once regularly a part of the UI, now only appears if the keyboard judges the need for correction is imminent. Its notion of the need for correction is opaque and unpredictable and prediction is nearly never offered, having been banished to the prediction bar.
Long story short, we used to have this, too, on iOS, and it too is a victim of Apple's software team siloing and decline from an engineering company to a Justify Your Existence tech company.
posted by majick at 7:33 AM on May 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
I have different language keyboards set up depending on who I am texting. However, switching the typing keyboards between languages doesn’t automatically switch the dictation language & I get some hilarious phonetic guesses from the iPhone if I forget to change that. “Nessa Cito compressor most of the hip palace Anoche” instead of “Necesito comprar los vegetales anoche” (I need to buy the vegetables tonight). PS thanks Teegeeak for the spacebar cursor tip, that will be life changing!!!
posted by gryphonlover at 10:00 AM on May 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by gryphonlover at 10:00 AM on May 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Shortly after I saw this post here, I happened across an old post by me complaining that the iOS autocorrect liked to change “Greetings!” to “Retinas!” at the start of messages.
I’m pretty sure that I caught all of those before they were sent out (because I definitely would have heard back about it), but wow.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 2:40 PM on May 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
I’m pretty sure that I caught all of those before they were sent out (because I definitely would have heard back about it), but wow.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 2:40 PM on May 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
A few years I was trying to use Siri in the car to voice a text to a friend that I was on my way and running late. Siri couldn't seem to get the right words I was saying and I eventually added "Siri is an asshole" to my message which Siri, of course, sent as "Siri is an apple."
posted by bendy at 8:51 PM on May 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by bendy at 8:51 PM on May 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
I don't think its is possible to talk about auto-correct on a smartphone without looking at how the lower level recognition works . Before you can get to the words and to the sentences - you need to deal with the basic problem that a smartphone keyboard is really small and that people will make all kinds of keying errors when they type on it. This problem nearly sank the iPhone during its development - and I would recommend this part of ColdFusions' The Struggle of Building the Original iPhone - The Untold Story for some details of how they managed to circumvent it.
In short - we all owe a great deal to Ken Kocienda, the Apple engineer who came up with the solution of dynamically re-mapping the size of the target area for each letter on the basis of what was detected previously. If I type "T" then the area around the letter "H" which will register that letter becomes bigger than keys like "B", "N", "G" and "J" which lie adjacent to it - because those letters are very unlikely at that point. And if I type "T" and then "H" - of course the dictionaries step in to guess the likely rest of the word. This AI/algorithmic approach allows smartphones to do a fantastic job with an undersized keyboard with no haptic feedback and where the letters are obscured by our stubby fingers. as we type.
Apple stopped the entire iPhone development, at one point to put all engineers onto coming up with solutions to the keyboard problem: because they clearly knew that it was vital to allowing people to walk up to the phone and type on it at reasonable speeds on a known keyboard layout. Without Kocienda's solution, there is a real risk the device might not have seen the light of day.
posted by rongorongo at 7:12 AM on May 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
In short - we all owe a great deal to Ken Kocienda, the Apple engineer who came up with the solution of dynamically re-mapping the size of the target area for each letter on the basis of what was detected previously. If I type "T" then the area around the letter "H" which will register that letter becomes bigger than keys like "B", "N", "G" and "J" which lie adjacent to it - because those letters are very unlikely at that point. And if I type "T" and then "H" - of course the dictionaries step in to guess the likely rest of the word. This AI/algorithmic approach allows smartphones to do a fantastic job with an undersized keyboard with no haptic feedback and where the letters are obscured by our stubby fingers. as we type.
Apple stopped the entire iPhone development, at one point to put all engineers onto coming up with solutions to the keyboard problem: because they clearly knew that it was vital to allowing people to walk up to the phone and type on it at reasonable speeds on a known keyboard layout. Without Kocienda's solution, there is a real risk the device might not have seen the light of day.
posted by rongorongo at 7:12 AM on May 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
here's one from a few hours ago: "Just pulling out now" as i was leaving a job site turned into "Jessi puking our notes" which lead to jocularity as my coworker gamely played along, chiding me for letting Jessi eat the notes in the first place.
dog's gonna do what dog's gonna do. Jessi's no different.
posted by glonous keming at 3:17 PM on May 2, 2022
dog's gonna do what dog's gonna do. Jessi's no different.
posted by glonous keming at 3:17 PM on May 2, 2022
I don't understand why anyone would type with two thumbs when they could do it faster with one.
... because the tech companies have judged that The Market values big screens and does not value phones small enough for *everyone* to hold and manipulate one-handed. I was a much more accurate phone typist with just the one thumb than I am with two, but even the smallest phone now on the market is unwieldy in my hand, and I can't reach the whole keyboard one-handed no matter how cavalier I decide to be with its safety. And I'm even less accurate if I hold the phone in one hand and use the forefinger on the other for the keyboard.
I make some consistent errors now that I never used to with the smaller phone. I wish it could figure out that if I end a sentence with "z", it means I missed the keyboard switch key when I was going for a full stop; and any time I start a word mid-sentence with "In" it's because I've hit "n" instead of the space bar. I have an increasingly long list of "shortcut" corrections - Indid, Inshould, Inhave, Inused... It usually recognises that the "n" is spurious when the first word doesn't start with a capital letter, but (I guess) tries not to make assumptions about proper nouns.
That said, the one that really mystifies me is what it does to saints' names. Suppose I want to refer to St Paul's Cathedral. I can get as far as "St Paul", but then when I add the apostrophe, it's now "St. paul". Presumably Apple doesn't know that UK English has its own rules for the use of full stops after abbreviations, hence inserting one after "St". I can live with it. But why in the world does it lowercase "Paul"? Same problem with St James's Park, St Peter's Church and St John's College. It's extremely annoying.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 9:01 AM on May 3, 2022
... because the tech companies have judged that The Market values big screens and does not value phones small enough for *everyone* to hold and manipulate one-handed. I was a much more accurate phone typist with just the one thumb than I am with two, but even the smallest phone now on the market is unwieldy in my hand, and I can't reach the whole keyboard one-handed no matter how cavalier I decide to be with its safety. And I'm even less accurate if I hold the phone in one hand and use the forefinger on the other for the keyboard.
I make some consistent errors now that I never used to with the smaller phone. I wish it could figure out that if I end a sentence with "z", it means I missed the keyboard switch key when I was going for a full stop; and any time I start a word mid-sentence with "In" it's because I've hit "n" instead of the space bar. I have an increasingly long list of "shortcut" corrections - Indid, Inshould, Inhave, Inused... It usually recognises that the "n" is spurious when the first word doesn't start with a capital letter, but (I guess) tries not to make assumptions about proper nouns.
That said, the one that really mystifies me is what it does to saints' names. Suppose I want to refer to St Paul's Cathedral. I can get as far as "St Paul", but then when I add the apostrophe, it's now "St. paul". Presumably Apple doesn't know that UK English has its own rules for the use of full stops after abbreviations, hence inserting one after "St". I can live with it. But why in the world does it lowercase "Paul"? Same problem with St James's Park, St Peter's Church and St John's College. It's extremely annoying.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 9:01 AM on May 3, 2022
I can type pretty accurately on an iphone (though I miss the tactile qwerty keyboards on my phones of old).
But every time I try to delete something I end up typing "mmmmmmmmmmm" instead, like the Skeksis chamberlain is lurkig in my phone and wants to preserve my errors.
posted by Pallas Athena at 10:54 AM on May 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
But every time I try to delete something I end up typing "mmmmmmmmmmm" instead, like the Skeksis chamberlain is lurkig in my phone and wants to preserve my errors.
posted by Pallas Athena at 10:54 AM on May 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
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posted by amanda at 8:02 AM on April 30, 2022 [34 favorites]