Why Is Autocorrect on the iPhone Still So Terrible?

The iPhone's ability to fix our words is just as bad as it was 10 years ago.

- By Jason Cross

We've all been there. You mean to type a simple phrase like “What do you want for lunch today? and it comes across as, “What do you it want for launch tidy? Autocorrect mistakes are so commonplace, and have been for so long, that we barely even acknowledge them anymore unless they're unintentionally hilarious.

Why is this? We're coming up on 15 years of the iPhone—the device that pioneered and popularized touch-only keyboard input-and autocorrect has been with us in some form or another since the '90s when Word would automatically correct accidental caps-lock typing or common misspellings.

After decades and billions of devices sold, not to mention that meteoric rise of machine learning and Al, autocorrect feels just as dumb as ever. In some ways it feels like it has regressed, even, making nonsensical substitutions when a simple letter swap would produce the correct word. Is autocorrect just really hard? Or is it not even trying to work the way it needs to? Is it no longer a priority?

THE MARCH OF NINES

I first learned of the concept called the “march of nines about 20 years ago (though I don't know where that term originated). I was researching and writing about the latest voice dictation software. That was back when computer users would have to buy software like Dragon Dictate to talk to their machines.