Malcolm Owen
Apple has acknowledged the existence of a bug in iOS 11 concerning the autocorrection of the letter 'i,' by offering affected users a work around via its support pages until a software update is released that solves the issue.
A new support page published on November 4 advises users of how to temporarily solve the error using iOS' own Text Replacement feature. It is also noted on the page that the instructions are only a work around "until it's fixed in a future software update," though no timeframe for the fix is offered.
The page advises users to go to Settings on the affected device, then to go to General and then the Keyboard section, followed by Text Replacement. After tapping the plus symbol, it is advised to enter an uppercase "I" in the Phrase field, with a lowercase "i" in the Shortcut section, before saving.
Aside from Apple's own workaround, users can also avoid the issue by turning off predictive text. Though some users have suggested a phone restore could clean up whatever is causing the issue to occur, the Apple Community Support Forums advise this isn't likely to permanently fix it.
The autocorrect bug, which affects a number of iPhone users who updated their devices to iOS 11, changes instances of the letter "i" to a two-character combination: the letter "A" and the unicode symbol FE0F, known as "variation selector-16." Variation selectors are typically used to specify variants of a Unicode character, such as to display a certain glyph within a language like Chinese or Japanese, as well as mathematical symbols and some emoji.
It is unknown why the autocorrect mishap is taking place, and it is also unclear why the problem is occurring to some users, and not others. AppleInsider's testing of the bug, which involved sending a message from a device with the problem to other Apple hardware using iMessage, discovered it was visible in the message through certain combinations of hardware and software, but not in others.
The symbol was visible when the message was sent from one iPhone SE to another running iOS 11.1, as well as an iPhone 7 Plus in the iOS 11.2 beta. When sent to a 2012 Mac mini running macOS 10.13.1, the symbol was visible, but it was absent when sent to a 2016 15-inch MacBook Pro running macOS 10.13.2 beta 1 and to a 2015 15-inch MacBook Pro running macOS 10.13.1.
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
14 Comments
That is one weird error and I’ve seen it all over Twitter.
This isn't affecting my iPhone, it's affecting my Mac. A family member doesn't like to use caps so the initial "i" gets sent (sometimes) as the A (bunch of horizontal lines). I see this in Messages but it's fine on my iPhone. This article only talks about the iOS devices and my family member hasn't said anyone else is complaining.
Has anyone else noticed that iOS 11 seems to be one of the buggiest releases in years? I just got an iPad Pro, and I love the multitasking features, but I’m probalby going to ‘downgrade’ my 6s to iOS 10 because the clock and notifications keep disappearing from the lock screen.
iOS 11 is indeed the buggiest software Apple have released in a long time. It’s incomprehensible how some of these bugs have crept into their software.
How about fixing that Night Shift that cannot be turned off permanantly because Settings crash when you try on iOS11? Do we have to turn it off every night on Apple schedule rather than users?