Home

How to Fix the 'A [?]' Autocorrect Bug in iOS 11 When Typing 'i' Out on Your iPhone

Nov 7, 2017 05:07 PM

Nov 13, 2017 11:13 PM

There's an annoying bug in Apple's latest operating system for iPhone, iOS 11, that autocorrects the lowercase letter "i" by itself (which usually turns into a capital "I" pronoun) into a capital "A" followed by a strange question mark in a box "[?]" symbol. There is now an official patch for this bug, as well as a workaround fix if you don't want to update yet.

Autocorrect preferring "A [?]" for "i" (left) and even being the first result for nothing (right).

Bryan Crow/Gadget Hacks

Autocorrect preferring "A [?]" for "i" (left) and even being the first result for nothing (right).

Bryan Crow/Gadget Hacks

UPDATE: On Thursday, Nov. 9, Apple pushed out iOS 11.1.1 to all devices running iOS 11.1, and it fixes this "i" glitch. So, to fix it:

Simply go to "Software Update" in the "General" section of the Settings app
Follow the prompts to download and install the iOS 11.1.1 update to fix this issue

If you're not ready to update to iOS 11.1.1, you can also solve it by following the work-around below.

To manually fix this iOS 11 autocorrection error, which was spreading at a significant rate before Apple released the patch above, we can create a keyboard shortcut to change "i" into "I" instead of a question mark in a box symbol.

Open the Settings app.
Select "General" –> "Keyboards" –> "Text Replacement."
Tap the plus (+) sign up top to create a new shortcut.
Enter an uppercase "I" for Phrase and lowercase "i" for Shortcut.
Hit "Save" up top, and you're done.

Justin Meyers/Gadget Hacks

This was the same fix for the iPhone "i" glitch that Apple recommended until they actually patched the issue in the Nov. 9 software update. Alternatively, you could also just toggle off "Auto-Correction" entirely, but then you'd have to, you know ... spell things correctly on your own.

Apple had already fixed the "i" issue in the latest developer beta for iOS 11.2, but as widespread as the issue was, it's no surprise that they pushed out iOS 11.1.1 instead of waiting for iOS 11.2 later this month.

And now that you know there is a handy "Text Replacement" menu in the Keyboard settings, you can start using it to your advantage. You can create shortcuts to your favorite emoji, use a symbol like @ to autocorrect to your email address, fix proper noun issues, and the list goes on.