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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Typing on an iPhone may trigger more typos than usual.
- The wrong character appears even if the right key is tapped.
- The glitch seems to be software or OS related.
Typing on a mobile phone can be a frustrating experience. You try to hit those tiny keys with your big thumbs, hoping that the right characters appear. But far too often, you end up with typos. That problem may have gotten even worse on an iPhone.
More frequent mistakes
A YouTuber named Michi NekoMichi recently posted a slow-motion video that recorded him typing the phrase “thumbs up” on his iPhone keyboard. The video showed that even when the correct key was pressed, the phone would enter the wrong character, typically one surrounding the key he pressed. For example, typing the letter u would insert the letter y or h instead, while typing the letter m would insert the letter n.
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Among the more than 9,600 comments that NekoMichi received in response to his video, many users revealed that they had encountered the same problem. People on X and Reddit have also weighed in with similar complaints. Some have blamed the glitch on getting older and not using the keyboard as efficiently as in the past. Others say it started happening after upgrading to iOS 26.
I’ve always had some trouble typing on my iPhone keyboard, with the keys feeling too small and my thumbs too big. But I have noticed more typos lately, forcing me to correct mistakes more frequently than in the past.
With so many people chiming in about this problem, what could be the cause?
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AutoCorrect is typically the usual suspect for typos, as it often changes text in incorrect or inappropriate ways. But NekoMichi purposely turned off AutoCorrect and still ran into the same glitch. The keyboard’s Predictive Text option could also be at fault, as it sometimes guesses the wrong characters. However, this isn’t the case here, as NekoMichi’s video shows that he’s pressing the right characters — it’s just that the wrong ones appear.
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Could this be a glitch with iOS 26?
It would make sense if it’s a glitch with iOS 26, since many iPhone owners have reported more typos lately. But NekoMichi claims he experienced this issue even with iOS 18. Instead, he posed two theories as to why this is happening but said he didn’t think either one was correct.
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The first theory centers around AutoCorrect. But since this option was disabled during his test video, that doesn’t pan out. The second theory focuses on the area of a key that you tap. Over the years, Apple has adjusted the size of each key’s touch region to determine which key you’ll likely press next, NekoMichi said. But this doesn’t hold up since the video demonstrates that the keys being detected are not the ones that show up.
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The promising news is that the problem doesn’t appear to be hardware related, as it occurs across a variety of iPhones. Instead, it could be a bug that popped up in the OS, possibly in iOS 18, and then carried over to iOS 26. If that’s the case, then Apple should be able to address it in a future update. For now, though, the company has yet to acknowledge the issue, at least not publicly. I reached out to Apple for comment and will update the story with any response.
How to work around the typos
In the meantime, here are a few steps I recommend to work around keyboard typos.
- Dictate your text. Below the virtual keyboard in any text-based app is a microphone icon. Just tap that and you can dictate what you want to type, thereby avoiding the keyboard altogether.
- Slide to Type. I often use the Slide to Type feature on my iPhone. Here, you simply slide your finger from one key to another to spell out a word. Though this option isn’t perfect, I find it’s often more accurate and reliable than tapping the keys with my thumbs.
- Edit misspelled words. Rather than manually correcting a misspelled word, you can ask your iPhone to do it for you. With the Check Spelling option enabled through settings, a misspelled word is underlined in red. Just tap it to see a list of alternative words and select the correct spelling if it appears.
- Try a different keyboard. Though Apple’s built-in keyboard integrates nicely with the iPhone, you don’t have to stick with it. Alternative keyboards are available, including Gboard–>, Microsoft SwiftKey<!–>, Typewise–>, and Grammarly<!–>. You can always try one of them to see if it’s more accurate than the built-in one.
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