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points by user_7832 11 hours ago | 0 comments

I'm not sure you get what's exactly happening. It's not only not predicting, it's also "typing something else".

Swipe "Ireland" alone, works. "United" alone, works.

Same swipes but back to back, and now it's suddenly "United Iceland".

There's no predictive text involved here, this starts going into the willful territory.

I'm a pretty quick and accurate swipe typer, and it's so frustrating to repeatedly get the wrong result and get NO signal that it's not my error, meaning I usually try one or two more times.

Picked at random: "right wing propaganda" isn't severe enough a phrase that I instinctively know I'm hitting a swear filter. After swiping the last word iOS goes back and changes the second word to "Wong". In order to understand what was happening and then fix it, I had to backspace (deleting the whole phrase), re-swipe both words, backspace, re-swipe both words again, double tap the incorrect word, backspace, type the word, tap to return to the end of the sentence, and hit space. All to fix one letter.

If this was really about protecting people from accidentally typing these that might land them in hot water, why wouldn't iOS at least offer the word it knew I wanted in the suggestion bar?

[–] unpleasurable 4 hours ago

maybe it's actually trying to warn you about the Wongs, if only you would listen

[–] flumpcakes 10 hours ago

That is still predictive. Words can be fine in their own and then contentious when strung together. I agree this is not censorship and that if peoples phones were autocompleting to something horrible then people would be up in arms.

[–] wiseowise 9 hours ago

I'm sorry, how the fuck swiping over `iReland` predictive of `iCeland`, when they're on the opposite sides of a keyboard?

[–] scosman 8 hours ago

All swipe to type is predictive. It's ignoring 80% of the letters you swipe over, and guessing your intent.

You didn't "swipe Ireland", you're swiping something like IUYTRERGHJKLKJHGFDSASDCVBNHGFD" and it's predicting "Ireland".

[–] pj1115 8 hours ago

The problem is not accuracy -- the words from the problem phrases are never suggested either. Worse, on the three-word phrases, iOS goes back and changes earlier words to avoid completing the phrase, and removes the original from the suggestions.

I tried typing "propaganda" ten times with 100% accuracy. When it's preceded with "[left] wing", the accuracy drops to 0%.

[–] scosman 8 hours ago

It's still predictive. It's using the context of surrounding words, and guessing the whole phrase.

Try swiping "grocery lost" and it will predict "grocery list", even you swiped over "o" and not "i". "put", "pit" and "pot" are all exactly the same swipe, and it always has to guess which you want.

It really is always guessing, and never completely sure. Every good consumer predictive system has some guardrails. Not guessing "free tibet" for someone in China could keep them out of serious trouble.

Could then tune the confidence thresholds instead of block list? Probably. Are they censoring you? No, just tap the letters.

[–] aucisson_masque 8 hours ago

I swipe United, it gets it right the first time.

I swipe Ireland, it gets it right the first time.

I swipe “united ireland” a hundred times, it never work.

It’s not probability.