Struggling to spell ‘male chauvinist pig’? Apple’s grey list means your iPhone won’t help you
There are more than 100,000 words and phrases that the tech giant has restricted its predictive text from completing, research shows “Australia is a very bad place to question your sexuality on MDMA with NSA spies” might be a text you would wish to send to your friends, if you have had an extraordinarily complicated night out in Sydney. But your iPhone won’t help you spell any of it if you try to…
Apple's iPhone has a "grey list" of over 100,000 words and phrases that it restricts from being completed by its predictive text feature. This research was uncovered by independent researcher Derik Kauffman, who noticed his iPhone struggling to type certain phrases while others were accepted. The list, encoded in Apple's operating system, includes words and phrases related to drugs, sexual acts, and politically charged topics.
Among the restricted phrases are "Australia is a very bad place", "question your sexuality", "on MDMA", "Trayvon Martin", "Kashmir dispute", "Muslim extremist", and "male chauvinist pig". In Hebrew and Arabic, Apple will not autocomplete "the occupied territories" and "the Hamas movement", respectively. Apple claims its keyboard is designed to avoid inappropriate or offensive suggestions, allowing users to type out specific words or phrases and override predictive text when needed.
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