Why autocorrect on your iPhone sometimes works so badly

auto correct; it really gets the blood out of our fingernails every now and then. Why does the function sometimes work so terribly badly? We explain it to you.

Autocorrect: a blessing and a curse

For people who make a lot of typos and language errors (and there are a lot of them), autocorrect on the iPhone is a real godsend. The function turns mistyped words into correct language and does this completely automatically. Sometimes, however, autocorrect just makes typing more difficult. The function doesn’t like swear words – admit it, you use them too sometimes – or puns, abbreviations, work-related terms that are not in the dictionary and other messaging-language. Incredibly irritating.

Autocorrect corrects errors based on a complex algorithm based on two different dictionaries. These are a static regular dictionary built into iOS 15 and a dynamic dictionary, which replenishes itself based on your language usage. So if you regularly type ‘yes’ as ‘yes’, the dynamic dictionary should learn this over time. Autocorrect doesn’t ‘improve’ it after that.

So the function is in a constant battle between the static dictionary and the dynamic dictionary. Unfortunately, the right choice is not always made. Autocorrect cannot read minds and therefore does not always understand when you make a ‘mistake’ intentionally or accidentally. The algorithm tries to understand you a little better based on different words in the sentence and where your fingers touch the keyboard.

Also read: This is how autocorrect on the iPhone was born: ‘even ten years later it is not perfect’

Give autocorrect time and help it on its way

So it’s important that you give autocorrect time to get to know you a little. If you mistype a word three times in the same way, the dynamic dictionary will automatically save the word. After that, in most cases it is no longer ‘improved’ unless the algorithm decides that the word needs to be modified based on the context.

It is therefore important that you type your unknown words three times the same. So don’t write them one time with capital letters and the other time without, because then the algorithm will get confused. Do you want to turn autocorrect on or off? You do that as follows:

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