I'd like to hear what you have to say on that.
I also want to note that whether you have predictive turned on or not, you should assume that your phone is 'thinking about' what you're typing regardless. Also whether it does or not (probably does) anything you transmit (text, email, whatever) is probably (almost certainly) being stored in a government database somewhere. That's just the world we live in today.
Anyhow, continue with what you were holding back... I'm interested.
You make a good point. I don't want to turn this into a philosophical discussion on privacy vs security or any of that. But I will explain my situation to where I realized that "something" is going on with the predictive keyboard.
In my example, I'm going to use different terms, because, well, privacy and all that. So what really made me say "hmmmmm" about the predictive keyboard is this:
The predictive keyboard starts suggesting words even at the very first letter you've typed. I would expect certain suggestions, but I started seeing a few that were off the wall however *personal* in a way that bothered me. Hypothetical example: Let's say I'm texting someone and typed out "I will see you
t" with the "t" intended as the first letter in "tomorrow". I wouldn't be surprised if suggestions said the/tonight/tomorrow/too/etc...., but I was totally caught off guard to see "Triceratops".
(again, this isn't the exact word, but the situation is 99.9% identical)
"Triceratops" (with a capital T, no less!) is not anywhere near what I would expect the predictive keyboard to guess in this situation. I'm sure most people would dismiss it as a weird bug. But what if in the past, far before installing iOS 8, I know I would have used the word in some communication, and perhaps that I hobby interest in paleontology, and would have visited a website related to "Triceratops" and other dinosaurs. Such a suggestion then seems less bizarre, but it indicates that the predictive keyboard function is indexing *something*.
OK,
tinfoil hat off, here's my best explanation, based on what other people have said, and a bit of applied logic: The keyboard uses data from an internal custom dictionary, and that data is present from prior to iOS8 and used for the Autocorrect feature. It's already been/being collected. Aside from a few thousand "everyday" words, it indexes more unique words that you might use. And my guess is that they are indexed relevant to how often you've used these words in the past. So if you have a friend with a uniquely spelled name, it will not try to change it to a more commonly used version.
Yes, it was odd that a unique word like "Triceratops" was suggested when all I had typed was "t" so far. I'm going to chalk that up to an inefficient algorithm in the predictive system. Or who knows, maybe it sensed I wanted to type "Triceratops" before I even knew it myself.
As I examine the situation, it becomes less creepy, but at the moment, it did freak me out. ("How does this phone know I like dinosaurs?")
I guess the answer is, duh, everybody likes dinosaurs, right?
