Here's something that's been broken in iOS since v1.0 that I hope they fix: autocorrect. I was going to write a blog post about this but I'll just write a small

Here's something that's been broken in iOS since v1.0 that I hope they fix: autocorrect. I was going to write a blog post about this but I'll just write a small version here. Problem 1: Autocorrect is by definition an algorithm that makes mistakes. Hence, it should be an 'opt-in' UX. Currently, it's 'opt-out', ie, I can type a word that's perfectly correct, and the computer can "overrule" me and replace the word I just typed. This is horrendous. If I make a typo, that's my fault and I can only get mad at myself. If the computer makes a typo (ie, replaces my text with text I don't want without me telling it to) then that's inevitably frustrating. Problem 2: The autocorrect bubble appears on the screen where the cursor is. This makes it so that I cannot develop muscle memory for the mechanism to de-activate autocorrect. Problem 3: The bubble has the word it's going to replace with as well as an "X" -- the naive user will think that tapping the bubble will activate the word, and tapping the X will remove the bubble. It turns out, that tapping the word itself behaves the same as the "X". Problem 4: Combine 1 & 2 and you realize that autocorrect as implemented right now necessarily makes it so I constantly have to be looking at both the keyboard and the cursor at the same time as I type. Every letter I type I need to "double check" at the cursor point to confirm iOS is not about to overrule me when I wack the spacebar. Then, if it turns out that I catch the computer doing something wrong, I have to remove my hands from the keyboard, and tell it "no, bad computer." On iPhone, this is barely tolerable because of the small screen. On iPad, it is a nightmare. It amazes me Apple got this one so wrong since they usually don't miss these details. Here's some alternatives: Proposal 1: Add a button to the keyboard to cancel the autocorrect and show the word if one is about to be blasted in over my typing. Basically move the "bubble" into the keyboard. This at least will make it so I don't have to watch the cursor like a hawk as I type. Proposal 2: Proposal 1 + make it opt-in. So the new keyboard key is one-click to activate the word as opposed to deactivating the autocorrect for that word. (I think this is how Android does it?) Proposal 3: Leave the UI as is but make the bubble opt-in (tap to replace) instead of opt-out. Of course there are other ways to deal with this and they all involve tradeoffs. But it's clear to me that since I've owned an iPhone now since they first came out and I'm still frustrated by the autocorrect clearly there's a better solution out there.