Struggling to spell ‘male chauvinist pig’? Apple’s grey list means your iPhone won’t help you

The Guardian · Aisha Down · 2026-11-06 16:12 UTC

There are more than 100,000 words and phrases that the tech giant has restricted its predictive text from completing, research shows

“Australia is a very bad place to question your sexuality on MDMA with NSA spies” might be a text you would wish to send to your friends, if you have had an extraordinarily complicated night out in Sydney.

But your iPhone won’t help you spell any of it if you try to swipe-type it – that is, by gliding a finger across a keyboard as opposed to pecking out a word.

New research shows that Apple has a “grey list” of more than 100,000 words and phrases that it has restricted from being completed by its predictive text.

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