Apple’s adjusted auto-correct function will fix an issue that has long irked iPhone users who, when typing out a common curse word, have had it immediately replaced with a now widely understood stand-in: “duck.”
The update, as part of new iOS 17 iPhone software arriving later this year, was announced during the Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday and was met with a wave of apparent enthusiasm from the public, and calls of “duck yeah” on social media.
Many thanked Apple for finally listening to users who for years have complained that they want to use profanity freely, without their messages being tweaked to feature a small waterfowl. Some praised Apple for fixing “the ducking issue” while others claimed they were “finally freed of the tyranny of duck.”
“In those moments where you just want to type a ducking word, well, the keyboard will learn it, too,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s software chief, said during the event in Cupertino, Calif., explaining that the keyboard will fill in the blanks using the same technology that powers ChatGPT and that suggestions would become more personalized. That means, as The Post has reported, the automatic suggestions will be based on the words and phrases you use most and it will also apply to voice dictation.
The Apple feature has led to jokes about technology censoring profanity, including merchandise with the phrase “dear auto-correct, it’s never duck” including T-shirts and mugs.
While Apple didn’t mention artificial intelligence specifically at the annual software showcase, the newly announced keyboard updates are one way its influence was felt during the widely watched event.
Federighi said the software brings “big updates to the intelligence” of the iPhone keyboard and that the function is now “more accurate than ever” and as a result, able to provide better text suggestions to users based on frequently used words and phrases.
Apple on Monday revealed several other features and products including its new MacBook, and $3,499 mixed-reality headset known as Vision Pro.
Tatum Hunter, Chris Velazco, Geoffrey A. Fowler and Heather Kelly contributed to this report.
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