Apple Finally Getting Rid of That Ducking Autocorrect

‘What the duck’ no more

June 11, 2023 – No more Ducking autocorrect. Apple’s upcoming iOS 17 iPhone software will stop autocorrecting swear words, thanks to new machine learning technology, the company announced at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday.

“In those moments where you just want to type a ducking word, well, the keyboard will learn it, too,” said software boss Craig Federighi.

He announced the development at Apple’s developers’ conference in California.

iPhone users have often complained about how autocorrect forces them to rewrite their own messages – with the term “damn you autocorrect” becoming an acronym, a meme, an Instagram account and even a song. 

The changes to the function will happen thanks to the use of a transformer model, which learns context by tracking relationships in data, like the words in this sentence, using mathematical techniques.

And, as many (but not all) tired typists agree, it’s “about ducking time” for an update.