Apple offers temporary workaround for iOS 11 bug autocorrecting 'it' to 'I.T'

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
Posted:
in iPhone edited November 2017
Apple is currently coping with hundreds of complaints about an autocorrect bug in iOS 11, causing the word "it" to be autocorrected to "I.T."




While only some people are being affected, those that are are finding themselves having to manually select "it" as a QuickType suggestion, or else backspace to retype. In some cases, complaints appear to stretch back to September.

The fix was first discovered by MacRumors.

Apple is said to be recommending that people reset their keyboard dictionaries by going into the iOS Settings app, then tapping General, Reset, and "Reset Keyboard Dictionary." After a reboot the glitch may disappear, but not everyone has had success with this method.

The next best solution likely involves turning off autocorrection, but that can be problematic for people typing on an iPhone, particularly smaller models like the 8 or SE.

Apple is presumably planning to patch the bug in a forthcoming update. Earlier this month the company released iOS 11.1.1 to fix another autocorrect bug, which was causing the letter "i" to be changed into an "A" and a question mark. The issue was widespread enough that it was briefly spoofed in pop culture.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 29
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,038member
    Another keyboard bug? At least this one is easier for me to understand than the letter 'I' issue.
  • Reply 2 of 29
    zroger73zroger73 Posts: 787member
    When I write about the Honda Civic Si, it annoys me when my Macs autocorrect "Si" to "is". I've even added "Si" to the dictionary, yet the autocorrection persists. Very annoying!
    DavidAlGregory
  • Reply 3 of 29
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,038member
    zroger73 said:
    When I write about the Honda Civic Si, it annoys me when my Macs autocorrect "Si" to "is". I've even added "Si" to the dictionary, yet the autocorrection persists. Very annoying!
    One solution that I think will work is to create a keyboard shortcut so that typing 'sii' will switch to 'Si'. Or, you could even save more time by having 'hcs' switch to 'Honda Civic Si'.


    PS: One great thing about this feature is that it's synced through iCloud so you can also set it up on a Mac. The benefit of this is that you can create very complex replacements with carriage returns. For example, if you post to this forum you may like to use certain HTML formatting to make your comments more readable but don't want to spend the time writing out the same HTML code on either your Mac or iDevice. With a few atypical letter combinations (usually the same letter repeated) I can have that populated instantly.
    edited November 2017 radarthekatzroger73GG1
  • Reply 4 of 29
    boltsfan17boltsfan17 Posts: 2,294member
    I text a lot and have yet to see this bug. 
    icoco3spinnyd
  • Reply 5 of 29
    tokyojimutokyojimu Posts: 532member
    I text a lot and have yet to see this bug. 
    A ⍰ haven't seen I.T either. 
    zroger73Solidws-2boltsfan17tenthousandthingsmuthuk_vanalingamGG1fruitstandninjaSpamSandwichbonobob
  • Reply 6 of 29
    jbishop1039jbishop1039 Posts: 258member
    I just started getting til turned into TIL on my iPhone and Apple Watch. 
  • Reply 7 of 29
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,038member
    tokyojimu said:
    I text a lot and have yet to see this bug. 
    A ⍰ haven't seen I.T either. 
    🤣 That made my morning.
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 8 of 29
    boltsfan17boltsfan17 Posts: 2,294member
    tokyojimu said:
    I text a lot and have yet to see this bug. 
    A ⍰ haven't seen I.T either. 
    haha that's pretty good. 
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 9 of 29
    robertwalterrobertwalter Posts: 276member
    zroger73 said:
    When I write about the Honda Civic Si, it annoys me when my Macs autocorrect "Si" to "is". I've even added "Si" to the dictionary, yet the autocorrection persists. Very annoying!
    Imagine you are Mel Blanc on The Jack Benny Show doing your Si, Sy, Sue routine live on air and the cue card guy is suddenly possessed by Siri.
    zroger73
  • Reply 10 of 29
    DavidAlGregoryDavidAlGregory Posts: 214member
    I have noticed a tendency for auto correct to place an “a” where it does not belong.

    Apple’s spell check needs some quality time with the developers for some fine tuning and polish.
    dysamoria
  • Reply 11 of 29
    kkqd1337kkqd1337 Posts: 451member
    I don’t think we should be calling the iPhone 8 a ‘small phone’
    bonobob
  • Reply 12 of 29
    coolfactorcoolfactor Posts: 2,327member
    I'm wondering if they are using cross-user learning of spellings, and this is part of the problem. For example, if enough people auto-correct "it" to "I.T", it becomes a learned correction for the larger user base?
    asdasddysamoria
  • Reply 13 of 29
    glynhglynh Posts: 133member
    Soli said:
    PS: One great thing about this feature is that it's synced through iCloud so you can also set it up on a Mac.
    Oh if only that were the case for me. When first introduced keyboard shortcuts (changed to text replacement somewhere along the line) has not been working cross-device for the the last few iterations of iOS and I'm only on iOS 10 When introduced it worked flawlessly across my iPhones, iPads, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro & iMac. Somewhere along the line they stopped talking to each other and it hasn't worked cross device for the last few years. During one iOS upgrade it actually deleted all of my shortcuts for no reason. It was a great feature and I used it all the time but I didn't have the heart to input all of my shortcuts again. Every so often I clear any stored shortcuts and add in abbreviations to the list, for example; ip6s for iPhone 6s, mba for MacBook Air, map for MacBook Pro etc. and they all stay on their respective devices! Would love it to work properly... PS. What's happened to my formatting? All my paragraphs have been merged into one continuous block of text?
    edited November 2017
  • Reply 14 of 29
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,038member
    glynh said:
    Soli said:
    PS: One great thing about this feature is that it's synced through iCloud so you can also set it up on a Mac.
    Oh if only that were the case for me. When first introduced keyboard shortcuts (changed to text replacement somewhere along the line) has not been working cross-device for the the last few iterations of iOS and I'm only on iOS 10 When introduced it worked flawlessly across my iPhones, iPads, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro & iMac. Somewhere along the line they stopped talking to each other and it hasn't worked cross device for the last few years. During one iOS upgrade it actually deleted all of my shortcuts for no reason. It was a great feature and I used it all the time but I didn't have the heart to input all of my shortcuts again. Every so often I clear any stored shortcuts and add in abbreviations to the list, for example; ip6s for iPhone 6s, mba for MacBook Air, map for MacBook Pro etc. and they all stay on their respective devices! Would love it to work properly... PS. What's happened to my formatting? All my paragraphs have been merged into one continuous block of text?
    The only issue I had with that syncing is getting multiple copies of each on every synced devices. Even when I tried to delete the extras it would still repopulate them. I even tried to delete all of them from all devices but it still put them all back and all their copies. I contacted Apple who had engineers resolve the issue for me after walking me through some steps.
  • Reply 15 of 29
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,831member
    I keep getting “we” corrected to W.E. It’s really annoying!
  • Reply 16 of 29
    rogifan_newrogifan_new Posts: 4,297member
    DavidAlGregory said:
    I have noticed a tendency for auto correct to place an “a” where it does not belong.

    Apple’s spell check needs some quality time with the developers for some fine tuning and polish.
    Yep I get this all the time. An ‘a’ is placed in front of a word where it shouldn’t be. I also get random capitalization that makes no sense. Very annoying.
    dysamoria
  • Reply 17 of 29
    bb-15bb-15 Posts: 283member
    Autocorrect even with iOS 10 has its quirks.
    Predictive text often doesn't want me to capitalize words for instance. I have to continually pay attention for autocorrect mistakes like this.

    dysamoria
  • Reply 18 of 29
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    I use swype as my main keyboard and I have been noticing recently that auto-predict/correct feature has been selecting the wrong word and I have to override and select one of the optional selections. I think Apple is have more than this "IT" issue as well as the other one that showed up last month. I think apple auto predict has gotten some gremlins.
  • Reply 19 of 29
    anantksundaramanantksundaram Posts: 20,408member
    There are so many such annoyances with iOS 11, I honestly don't even know where to begin. It is a stunningly poor update.

    At this point I -- along with many others I know -- shrug shoulders, curse the software Gods at Apple, and move on...
  • Reply 20 of 29
    fallenjtfallenjt Posts: 4,056member
    Most simple solution: fire the damn iOS software engineer who was in charge of it. One after another stupid autocorrect...I to A? And it to I.T ...?
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