Abe, Ann, Anne, Anna, Ana, Ave, ABs. These words are the bane of my life, as all too oftenmy iPhone thinks Im typing them instead of the word and. It happens shockingly often, to the point where I begin to think its doing it deliberately to troll me.

Contents It’s always the word andSurely I’m exaggerating?What can I do about Abe?Please, let AI come to my rescue Im an iOS keyboard fan, but its getting to the point where Im going to have to make a big change unless Apple does something about it.

　　Its always the word and

I find swipe (or glide) typing the fastest way to type on a touchscreen until its not. When the phone incorrectly guesses the word you were trying to type, it takes you out of the process as you erase and replace the word with the right one assuming the predictive text has given you the option of that word, of course. Breaking your flow like this slows it all down, and it can get quite annoying.

Related Now, imagine the keyboard gets one particular word wrong a lot of the time, and its a commonly used one that contains only three letters. Thats the situation I have with the word and on my iPhone. Its not a new thing either; it has happened for as long as I can remember, so I cant specifically blame a recent iOS update for this word blindness. I use the standard iOS keyboard, which is excellent at all other times.

Although I gave a few examples of the words my iPhone thinks Im trying to type instead of and, most of the time its absolutely convinced I want to type Abe. I can categorically state that I have never intentionally typed Abe into my iPhone. I dont know anyone called Abe, so the name isnt in my contacts, and I dont tap out messages starting Hey Abe on a daily basis or anything that would prompt my phone to think I was always telling Abe something.

Then, theres the context of these sentences. As an example, rarely would I want to type Im going to buy potatoes Abe but I may type Im going to buy potatoes and a steak. If this was a real message swiped into my iPhone, guess which sentence my iPhone would think I was trying to type? Yep, it will want to make very sure Abe knows Im off to grab some potatoes.

　　Surely Im exaggerating?

Just how prevalent is my iPhones refusal to print the word and? Perhaps Im exaggerating about the problem slightly, but it happens often enough that I notice it and have to correct it. So, whats causing it?

Its an issue that really only affects me when I swipe type on my phone. If I tap out the letters, it doesnt happen. But this is slower, which is why I tend to favor swipe typing. Abegate is not specific to one app either, so its not that, leaving the iPhones standard keyboard as the only logical culprit in all this.

Well, possibly the only logical culprit. Theres a chance a vague one that my clumsy swiping may also be to blame here, and in my haste, Im giving the iPhone enough of a hint that I want to type Abe, Ann, or Ave, and not. A classic case of, to dig up an old IT support acronym, PEBKAC problem exists between keyboard and chair.

If I make a conscious effort to deliberately swipe over the letters A, N, and D, then accuracy does improve, but muscle memory means it doesnt always last, seeing good old Abe (and sometimes Ann) return to bother me. In all likelihood, the issue is a combination of my swiping and the keyboards predictive text system.

　　What can I do about Abe?

I understand this is a very specific problem, but I wonder how many other people find their iPhones also have selective word blindness. Someone else may not have a problem with the word and, but instead, the keyboard always manages to confuse it with or, out, or our. Regardless of which word regularly confuses the software, the level of annoyance will be the same.

The bigger problem is that this isnt supposed to happen. Apple made big claims about its updated language model introduced in iOS 17, which better understands grammar when typing and will let you freely type the word previously altered to duck. Well, all I want to do is type and, and not ducking Abe.

What about using a different keyboard? I like Apples keyboard and dislike alternatives like Microsofts hateful SwiftKey. Plus, the way you switch between keyboards in iOS makes it too easy to accidentally change them, therefore becoming another irritation Id rather avoid.

However, when I swipe type on an Android phone using Gboard, it never suggests Abe. Ive tried using Gboard on my iPhone, but the iOS version of Gboard doesnt know me, and training it from the start to understand the way I type is even more time-consumingthan changing Abe to and.

　　Please, let AI come to my rescue

What do I want to be done about this most serious of problems? AI is the big new thing in mobile, and most new phones boast a range of AI software features. For iOS 18, I dont want Apple to introduce AI voice translation or AI transcription features I only use once in a while. I want it to put all its AI power into the keyboard, so in the future, it will look at a sentence Ive typed and think, Hmm, I doubt hes going for the word Abe here; I bet he meant to swipe and, but is a bit clumsy.Bless, Ill fix it for him.

Hopefully, thats not too much to ask, and Ill never again have to warn someone that at some point during our typed conversations, it may look like I call them Abe or Anne. But Im not its just my phone.