For the past week, many iPhone and iPad users who updated to iOS 11.1 were hit with a strange bug: they could no longer type the letter “i” without it autocorrecting to a completely different character.
That’s right. All instances of a lowercase “i” would be automatically converted to a different string, most commonly a capital “A” followed by a Unicode question mark character. In other cases, iOS would suggest other symbols such as “!” and “#” as a suitable fit.
Have you experienced this issue? If so, you’ll be pleased to know that after several days without proper access to the letter “i” Apple has released a software update to fix the problem. Simply head to Settings > General > Software Update and download iOS 11.1.1 to return to the full 26-letter alphabet. It’s much easier than Apple’s previous workaround, which involved fiddling with text replacement shortcuts in Settings.
John Gruber suggested it was a machine learning mistake, in which the autocorrect system confused itself into thinking “A [?]” was a sensible thing to write. It hasn’t affected all users, but enough for NY Mag to write about “the week Apple broke the alphabet.”
A [?], for one, am glad this glitch is now behind us.