Apple's hidden predictive text restrictions
The gist
Researcher Derik Kauffman says Apple's iOS keyboard won't autocomplete or swipe-type tens of thousands of words and phrases.
Hundreds of millions of iPhone users' typing suggestions may be quietly filtered.
How it unfolded
- Oct 20, 2026Kauffman is photographed in San Francisco showing a list of Apple's secret autocomplete blocklist.
- Nov 6, 2026Kauffman says Apple keeps an undisclosed multilingual gray list of tens of thousands of words and phrases its iOS keyboard will not autocomplete or swipe-type.
- Nov 6, 2026Kauffman says the flagged terms are mostly vulgar, offensive or related to drugs, sex or violence, but some are politically salient, such as "dictator Trump," "sleepy Joe," "Tibetan independence" and "United Ireland."
Key terms
- autocomplete
- A feature where an application predicts and suggests the rest of a word a user is typing.
Source: Wikipedia