I hate the iPhone auto-correct.
When the very first iPhone appeared on the planet, it was the coolest thing. Apple told us all to ignore the tiny toy keyboard, tap our gargantuan digits with wild abandon and auto-correct would handle the rest. And as uncomfortable as it seemed, they were right. It really did work pretty well. It put periods at the end of sentences, fixed contractions without having to find the dang apostrophe, and would even memorize a few pet words that were not in the dictionary, like schnookums. Before I knew it, I was having my first positive experience with texting. I’d never gleefully text messaged before the iPhone. Now I was annoying a voting majority of my friends with texts, most of whom had no texting plan with their cell phones.
I'd get calls like this one:
"Mick, please stop texting me! Costs me 10¢ every time you do."
"Oh, sorry. I didn't realize our friendship had such a low price tag."
"No, it's not about the money, it's just annoying."
"Our friendship is annoying?"
"No, just the texting, wise guy."
"Well, why don't you get an iPhone?"
"Don't they cost something like $600?" This was approximately what you had to be willing to plunk down in 2007 to join the Church of iPhone.
"You get what you pay for," I preached.
"I'm not ready to pay $600 for a cell phone that my 2 year old will probably drop in the toilet." He had a point.
"But it's so much more than that," I evangelized.
"More than $600?"
"No, more than a phone! It's like having a tiny computer and Internet device anywhere you go."
"Isn't that what a laptop is for?"
[Sigh] It's hard being ahead of your time. This friend bought one shortly after Apple lowered the price and then went ahead to tell the world how revolutionary iPhones are by text messaging all of his friends without texting plans...
So I was texting my wife the other day and it went something like this:
"Hi Live, running a little Kate."
"Live? Kate?
"Sorry, "Love Kate."
"Who's Kate?"
"I mean ‘Love’ and ‘late.’ Argggg! Dang auto-correct!”
“Oh, got it. Just wanted Tunisia,” she replied.
“Tunisia?”
“To ‘tease ya.’ LOL!”
Now at this point I would love to share some of the truly sidesplitting auto-corrections many iPhone users have experienced and uploaded on the web, but this is a family show here. If you want more, check out:
In the meantime, what to do about this often-embarrassing annoyance? How do we continue to text without shame? What are the algorithms that somehow place "Kate" as a more common word than "late?" Is my iPhone obessed the latest royal nuptials? Are cuts to public education affecting autocorrect? And what about all of those strange misspelled words that get memorized too? I once had “Willybangome” slide past the iPhone sensors when I was trying to type “What time will you be home?” I could never type the word "what" again without seeing that creative correction.
Well, if worst comes to worst (as it did above for me), you can always go into the iPhone settings and reset the keyboard dictionary. You wipe all things memorized by going here: Settings > General > Reset > Reset Keyboard Dictionary.
But then you must be willing to live without Willybangomes. We found that we couldn’t, and now use it to inquire when the other is coming home.
Such us life.
Such is live.
Such us Luge…!....
Argggg…. Such. is. life.
Gotta live that iPhone.
We're here if you need us. But please don’t text. Seriously. Our main line doesn’t receive them.
All the beast,
Nick
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