Turning off Predictive Keyboard feature

Just a heads up for those of you who find the new Predictive Keyboard feature distracting and potentially creepy: it can be turned off.

Settings > General > Keyboard > Predictive (switch off)

Frankly, I had it bring up a few "predictions" which I found a bit intrusive, totally out of context yet too weird to be random. I'm not sure how it is gathering relevant data, but it bothered me. I will elaborate if anyone's interested, but frankly I didn't find the feature useful so I turned it off.

 

Very nice! Thanks for the tip.

This got me thinking, though: do the new third party keyboard apps have the ability to transmit your typing off your device? Surely there are some security measures in place for privacy?

 

shawzborne, what app are you using to view MacRumors?

 

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?