This video was recommended to me on YouTube detailing a problem with the keyboard on iOS26. It shows a slow motion capture of someone clearly selecting a certain button, iOS recognizing the correct selection via the popup character, but ultimately displaying the wrong character on the screen. I'm still on iOS18 so I can't test this but have there indeed been more typing errors on the recent iOS26 versions?
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Is there a keyboard bug in iOS26?
- Thread starter Mity
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Without question. I thought my typing was getting worse till I saw this very video yesterday.
I'm the creator of that video.
It seems this bug might not be new to iOS 26. I've experienced increased occurrence of typing errors ever since iOS 16 but always assumed it was due to my own clumsy typing, it was only recently that I decided to record my typing in slow motion to find out what was going on.
This bug isn't consistent, it doesn't always happen when I type the same phrase and it might even affect different phrases for different people, or not affect some people at all. Everyone types differently and has different devices with different settings, I suspect a specific combination of these is allowing the bug to occur but because there are too many variables involved it's difficult to pinpoint what exact combination of conditions can cause this.
I'd say that if you haven't noticed any unusually high incidence of typos while on iOS 18 then you won't notice it get any worse on iOS 26.
It seems this bug might not be new to iOS 26. I've experienced increased occurrence of typing errors ever since iOS 16 but always assumed it was due to my own clumsy typing, it was only recently that I decided to record my typing in slow motion to find out what was going on.
This bug isn't consistent, it doesn't always happen when I type the same phrase and it might even affect different phrases for different people, or not affect some people at all. Everyone types differently and has different devices with different settings, I suspect a specific combination of these is allowing the bug to occur but because there are too many variables involved it's difficult to pinpoint what exact combination of conditions can cause this.
I'd say that if you haven't noticed any unusually high incidence of typos while on iOS 18 then you won't notice it get any worse on iOS 26.
I'm quite bad with typing on phones in general but I tend to have much more issues with Android keyboards like Samsung. I found iOS to be more accurate but it probably depends on other things too.
I actually did notice that my friend, who normally types without any typos at all, did have many typos recently.
Yes! I see this too. I thought I was going mad for a while. I’m so appreciative of the video you made as the slow motion capture of typing gave me a good reason to believe that I hadn’t suddenly lost all coordination!
I also notice this really badly on my iPad Pro. Mostly I use the magic keyboard for typing long text (including this). However, I do quite like to use emojis so often detach the ipad and switch to on screen as it’s so much less painful to do it that way than the top ranked suggestion in google, which is an article from 2017 and wrong (in fact I have recently discovered that you just use control+cmd+space, which is way easier).
It could still be a problem with the touch targets feature, depending on how this is actually implemented.
iOS 26 is actually quite disappointing. I’ve disabled the main feature (liquid glass) as it just looks terrible and makes things hard to read. WhatsApp has a ton of little glitches, including randomly scrolling to a point months ago in the conversation and half the time chopping off the bottom of the last message with the message entry bit and giving a tiny one line text entry (thankfully signal is fine as it’s my primary messaging tool). I get a gut feel that there’s a backwards compatibility layer for the UI manager that’s buggy as hell, and a new UI manager that’s also.. buggy as hell.
Now that I think of it, I did actually have issues on my M2 iPad Pro that I had upgraded to iPadOS 26. I couldn't figure out what was happening. I recently traded that in to buy the M5. I'm going to be more cognizant of this when I get my new iPad to see if the issue still persists.
I'd say it started with iOS 18, or, as stated, maybe even earlier. Really, really annoying. I always turn off auto-correct as it just slows me down and since a few versions back, I make so many more errors it is infuriating. I have actually seen the "bug" without slow-mo but I have always thought I "saw wrong" but this makes it perfectly clear that I was correct.
I can't speak to Samsung's keyboard, but Gboard on Android is top notch typing. (I turn the flick typing off, however, as that causes some typos for my use case.) Super accurate and great haptics.
Maybe this bug is contributing. But I am such as lousy typist since the iPhone 4 days.
Gboard on my Pixel 7 Pro was awesome. I'm hoping that the iOS keyboard can just add an option to include a number row and a multi-punctuation button.
Unquestionably. I didn’t notice any major issues with iOS 18, and on 26 the number of times I’m having to edit is much higher.
I type noticeably worse with my 16 Plus on iOS 18. My iPhone Xʀ on iOS 12 is far, far more accurate. I ran iOS 12 for six years (and I still do), and that one is far better.
I thought I had worsened my typing somehow but apparently it’s just iOS.
Yeah, I am too! I noticed a difference but I’m sure part of the contribution is mine to blame.
This has been a problem for a long time. Not new, and the fact that it is still broken says a lot about Apple’s priorities lately. They should prioritize functionality we come in contact with most frequently and make sure that works really well.
I thought I was going crazy with the amount of typos I have been making the past 6 months or so. Im on iOS 18.7.1.
I had a similar thought since my issues seem to coincide with moving to larger iPhones. I kept a 6s for years and had no trouble typing quickly. Moving from the 6s to an 11PM made this issue very noticeable. I can’t recall what iOS versions were involved, though.
My M4 Pro keyboard experience with 18.x has never been good. 26 has not improved it much if any. I had hopes it would. “Typos” galore. I’m reasonably confident I’m hitting the keys square on but the Pro sometimes says differently.
First, huge thanks to @Nekomichi for posting that video. 👏 I am appalled because I too am having problems with iPhone typing. It seems clear that the visual representation of the key pressed on the keyboard is decoupled from what is actually entered as text in textboxes. Amateurish mistake on Apple's part - heads should roll. Why hasn't this made the front page of MR? it is fundamental to the iOS user-interface. I wonder for instance, if this happens when typing in passwords.
Second, what concerns me almost as much as the mistyping is that the suggestions iOS comes up for misspellings are virtuality useless because they do not take into account the writing context. WTF is the point of AI-enabled iPhones if the AI cannot detect the context that an e-mail is about finances, and hence the correct word is 'profit' not 'profiterole'?
Finally I wonder if this 'bug' isn't Apple's way of training its AI - what better data for AI training could there be other than to randomly change a few letters when a human user types a word and then have the human show the AI how to correct the error? Maybe this was in iOS beta's so that Apple could use the data from employees and it was inadvertently left in. I know, I know - the idea sounds paranoid. Likely it is. However, these days with the pressures on companies from lacklustre AI performance, I rule nothing plausible out until I have evidence otherwise.
EDIT: I also wonder if this isn't some sort of Bayesian prediction of keystrokes, which would entail extracting your habitual keystrokes (prior evidence) with the keystroke you just made to guess what your intent is (the posterior probability). This might create a result different from the key you actually hit. Anyway - this is bizarre and damned frustrating.
Second, what concerns me almost as much as the mistyping is that the suggestions iOS comes up for misspellings are virtuality useless because they do not take into account the writing context. WTF is the point of AI-enabled iPhones if the AI cannot detect the context that an e-mail is about finances, and hence the correct word is 'profit' not 'profiterole'?
Finally I wonder if this 'bug' isn't Apple's way of training its AI - what better data for AI training could there be other than to randomly change a few letters when a human user types a word and then have the human show the AI how to correct the error? Maybe this was in iOS beta's so that Apple could use the data from employees and it was inadvertently left in. I know, I know - the idea sounds paranoid. Likely it is. However, these days with the pressures on companies from lacklustre AI performance, I rule nothing plausible out until I have evidence otherwise.
EDIT: I also wonder if this isn't some sort of Bayesian prediction of keystrokes, which would entail extracting your habitual keystrokes (prior evidence) with the keystroke you just made to guess what your intent is (the posterior probability). This might create a result different from the key you actually hit. Anyway - this is bizarre and damned frustrating.
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