Any iPhone user with AutoCorrect turned on knows that a certain four-letter swear word will immediately be replaced with the rhyming name of a waterfowl species, but not for long.
Apple’s upcoming iOS 17 iPhone software will stop automatically correcting swear words, thanks to new machine-learning technology, the company announced at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday.
Autocorrect substitutions have historically been a source of frustration as well as entertainment for many, spawning popular “damn you, autocorrect” social media accounts, internet memes and at least one song.
And, as many (but not all) tired typists agree, it’s “about ducking time” for an update.
“In those moments where you just want to type a ducking word, well, the keyboard will learn it, too,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering.
The upgraded system is powered by a Transformer Language Model, which Apple calls “a state-of-the-art on-device machine learning language model for word prediction.”
This AI model more accurately predicts the words and phrases you might type next, TechCrunch explains. This allows it to learn a person’s most used phrases, habits, and preferences over time, affecting which words it corrects and which it leaves alone.
The new autocorrect will “improve the experience every time you type,” Federighi said.
And it’s just one of many new features of iOS 17, which is set to be released this fall. Others include real-time voicemail transcriptions, the ability to leave messages and reactions on FaceTime, a new Journal app and improved sharing capabilities with AirDrop, AirPlay and AirTag.
The update also aims to make autocorrect better at fixing grammatical mistakes and predicting words or phrases as users type, as well as making dictation more accurate, Apple says.
