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For some reason, my iPhone keeps autocorrecting the word “does” to “doe’s.”
Like… what? And why? I frequently use the common verb. I’m almost never talking about a female deer’s belongings.
What gives?
“Is autocorrect worse now?” I asked a few of my iPhone-using pals and colleagues and my very unscientific poll revealed a resounding yes: autocorrect is absolutely worse now, and comes up with baffling “corrections” to text that doesn’t need them. One friend had “really good” inexplicably changed to “orally good.” The ghosts in the machine love a lil’ mischief, clearly.
But do you know how many group-chat jokes of mine have been ruined by a typo inserted by this supposedly helpful technology that decided I meant “is” instead of “us” or “of” instead of “or”? I cannot have it! I am a professional writer!!!
We’re not imagining this. When Apple’s iOS 26 operating system rolled out last fall, many people took to the Apple discussion threads to complain about autocorrect. One user had a whole list of particularly chaotic corrections, including “hello” to “**** i.”
Apple’s autocorrect is yet another example of “enshittification” in tech.
Back in 2024, I talked to Cory Doctorow, the Toronto-born, Los Angeles-based tech blogger, journalist, science-fiction author and activist who coined the term, which describes the decay of platforms on which we come to depend, hastened by large companies who know they have their user base locked in, so they can care less about the user experience.
As Doctorow put it, “They don’t have to be good. They just have to be the only thing you end up using.” (I suggest reading the full Q&A; I learned a lot, including that it’s not all hopeless.)
Part of this is on us, though, and our reliance on things such as autocorrect. We’re dashing things off fast, firing off messages to each other without making sure they are clear. We’ve long been outsourcing spelling and grammar to programs that supposedly can do that for us, so our own skills have become much less sharp.
With the advent of full keyboards on phones, our text missives became much longer than they were in the T9-keyboard days, but we also expect to compose and send them with the same speed as “r u up?”
And now, both Microsoft Outlook and Gmail offer a choice of one-sentence auto-replies to emails, I guess so we can continue to sacrifice ourselves on the twin altars of Inbox Zero and productivity. These replies are often of the generic “sounds good, thanks!” variety but sometimes they are weirdly (and hilariously) hostile, like the time my email suggested I hit a colleague back with a one-sentence, “You are wrong.”
That right there is proof the technology I interface with everyday doesn’t know me at all. It should know that all of my internal emails are like, “Sorry to bug you! Is that OK? No worries if not!! I appreciate you!!! Are you mad at me?”
I’ve since turned off the autocorrect function. At least now you’ll know any typo-addled missives are indeed from me, and the typos are mine alone.
When I encounter or make a typo, I want it to be sincere, you know? I’ve long held the belief that typos are charming evidence of our humanity, proof that whatever you are reading was created by real people, and real people mess things up sometimes.
Now they are evidence of a text tampered with by enshittified technology meant to “improve” it. And honestly? That ducking sucks.
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