Why autocorrect makes so many mistakes on iPhone and iPad and how to correct it

June 5, 2019

By Kim Komando

Autocorrect is everyone’s best friend and worst enemy. When you’re texting a big message, you’re bound to misspell a word, especially when using the small buttons on an iPhone. However, it’s also probable you are typing some words correctly and autocorrect doesn’t interpret your idea properly.For example, autocorrect could have a hard time differentiating between words like ‘hours’ and ‘our’ or the words pit, put and pot.If words are misinterpreted often, it could become a pain. But, autocorrect was never meant to be a tool. Rather, it was designed for the convenience of users. Luckily, Apple has created simple solutions to help fix the small bugs of autocorrect.

Why does autocorrect change words I don’t want to be changed?

There are a number of reasons this happens and often times it’s because the settings you have in place. If you navigate to general settings and select the Keyboards option, a list of different autocorrect settings will pop up; showing you what permissions you’re giving to the keyboard.On this list, you can turn off auto-correction or make adjustments to other settings such as auto-capitalization and smart punctuation.A big reason autocorrect keeps changing your words is because you may not be training it to stop unwanted changes. While you’re typing a text message, you will notice a small preview that continuously appears when autocorrect wants to change a word.Essentially, the feature is asking your permission to make a change. If you press the space bar or select the word that’s being previewed, it gives autocorrect permission to edit. However, if you press the small ‘x’ next to the word, it tells autocorrect not to make a change.If you are active in denying permission to autocorrect, it will eventually stop changing the word.

Why is autocorrect capitalizing random words?

You may notice that autocorrect capitalizes random words in a sentence. If you are typing something normal like, “I need to call Mom and ask when She needs to go to the Store,” you’ll have to go back and make a change to all the words that shouldn’t be capitalized.If you don’t know why autocorrect keeps capitalizing ‘Mom’ and ‘Store,’ take a peek at your contact list and see how you are typing names. If you are saving certain words in your contact list a certain way, autocorrect will assume this is the way you always want it written.Another simple fix for this issue is to turn off the auto-capitalization setting in your keyboard tab.

What are the three words that keep showing when I text?

The three words that appear between your text box and keyboard are called predictive text. This feature can be annoying and doesn’t always get it correct. With every word you try typing, iOS will try and predict what you are going to say. You may not always want this on because it’s essentially just a guess.This feature isn’t always stuck on your screen and can be turned off. To turn it off, go back into your keyboard settings and toggle the predictive setting off.Similarly, you may also want to turn on text replacements. If you’re typing an acronym like ‘LOL’ autocorrect may change it to an entirely different word. In text replacement, you can type in the full phrase ‘laughing out loud’ and create the shortcut ‘LOL’ so autocorrect will stop changing the meaning.

Play with the settings

By no means is autocorrect a perfect feature, but, it can be very convenient. Some of the options that come with autocorrect may not be needed and it would be ideal for you to play around with your settings a bit to figure out exactly what you want to autocorrect.If your autocorrect is all over the place you may want to consider resetting your keyboard dictionary entirely by going to general settings, selecting reset and navigating to the dictionary reset button.