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 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		maybe it's actually trying to warn you about the Wongs, if only you would listen

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flumpcakes a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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 a day ago \| parent [-]
		I'm sorry, how the fuck swiping over `iReland` predictive of `iCeland`, when they're on the opposite sides of a keyboard?

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scosman a day ago | parent | prev [-]

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".

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pj1115 a day ago | parent [-]

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%.

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scosman a day ago | parent | next [-]

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.

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aucisson_masque 21 hours ago | parent [-]

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.

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scosman 8 hours ago | parent [-]

You swipe “grocery lost”, you get “grocery list”. It is probabilistic.

	▲	ShinyLeftPad 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		if you backspace and try swiping again, you immediately get "grocery lost". with "left wing propaganda" you can backspace and try again 100 times, you will only get "left wring propaganda". now ask yourself, since you insist it's probabilistic: what is statistically more probable, "left wing propaganda" or "left wring propaganda"? there's nothing probabilistic about this

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barrell 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Tried this myself. Got 10/10 on propaganda, 0/10 on left wing propaganda, 10/10 on right wring propaganda.

I think that’s a bigger issue regardless of your political stance.