[Fixed] Another iOS autocorrect bug: random words/letters being capitialized

Update (March 31): This problem has been fixed by Apple in iOS 11.3. Here’s what the release notes say:

Addresses an issue where auto-correct could incorrectly capitalize some words

Original story follows:

Do you have an Apple device running iOS 11 or later? If so, this one will likely concern you, as it’s affecting latest iOS versions as well. Most iOS users would have probably heard or encountered the iOS 11-triggered auto correction bugs that resulted in ‘it’ being changed to ‘I.t’ and ‘i’ auto-correcting to ‘A’. And now, we have another iOS 11 auto correct ill-effect coming to light: random capitalization of words or letters.

While the issue centers around auto-capitalization, different use-cases have been highlighted on different help forums. Some reports say it’s the first letter that gets capitalized for random words in a sentence (as can be seen in screenshots above), others say the entire word gets capitalized for them.

Take a look at how some of the complainants word their observation:

When I type on the iPhone with IOS11, random words are being capitalized by autocorrect, while not following a space or period. Not sure what to do with this Mostly happens in mail or message apps.

While I’m typing a text or email iOS autocorrect decides to capitalise random words. It literally tried to capitalise the word “random” as I was typing this

For me, the words that get capitalized are common words like “Our” and “Still” and “Cool.”

Some of the users who tried to debug the problem note that the words saved as contact names are the ones being mistakenly capitalized.

I have a ton of contacts and most of them are actual names. It absolutely insane that auto-capitalization assumes that every word in my contacts equals a proper noun/name while typing. I really hope Apple changes this soon. It is definitely a complete PITA.

But that’s not the case for all. Many of the affected contradict the aforementioned by saying that random words which are nowhere to be seen in their contacts get capitalized.

My phone keeps capitalizing “Grave” for me…. look it just happened. I have no contacts with the word Grave at all. I also hate that I will type a word exactly how I want it and when I get 4-6 words past the word, it autocorrects to something out of left field. It always happens with food or good.

A tweet by Laurie Voss triggered a long chain of comments discussing the same problem. Following are some of the recent ones:

https://twitter.com/M4D1S0N/status/957666658990030849
https://twitter.com/christynicol/status/955946488919613440
https://twitter.com/whatadogsu/status/949809048039309312
https://twitter.com/MattTheKing/status/955830337044729858
https://twitter.com/stevemo72/status/947859702603485184

With a mixed bag of user reports, it difficult to comment where the actual glitch lies. But something is definitely broken, as hundreds of iOS users are reporting this odd auto correct behavior – this Reddit thread contains a whopping 600 comments on faulty behavior of iOS’ auto correct feature.

Also, disabling ‘Auto-Capitalization’ (in Keyboard settings) is not an option, as it prevents even the first alphabet of the first word in a sentence from capitalizing.

Just to clarify, the auto-capitalization bug continues to be reported since iOS 11 came to picture. And the problem is there even in the latest iOS 11.2.5.

On iOS 11.2.5 with iPhone 7 Plus. Issue present ever since updating to iOS 11 months ago

While complaints are flooding all over, nothing has been said by the Cupertino-based company yet. As the problem is being widely reported, we hope Apple addresses the matter sooner than later. Meanwhile, we are keeping track of the progress, and will update as and when anything news worthy occurs.

Do let us know in the comments section below in case you are encountering the same issue on your Apple device too.

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